


Richard Castle, Watcher

by Starfox5



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 207,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfox5/pseuds/Starfox5
Summary: Richard Castle did follow his girlfriend Kyra Blaine to London when she left him, and his life changed one evening in a pub there, when he discovered that yes, vampires were real. And dangerous. And that even more dangerous people were hunting them. Little did he know that what began in England in 1989 would one day lead him to Sunnydale, California, and later to New York's 12th Precinct.





	1. Welcome to the Real World

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or any of the characters in the series. I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of the characters in the series.
> 
> This story was originally started for the August 2015 Fic-a-Day challenge.
> 
> A huge thank you goes to macdjord, who proof-read the entire story.

****  


**London, June 1989**

Gazing at the drizzling rain in London, Richard Alexander Rodgers reconsidered his choice to continue his studies in England. He should have headed to Hawaii instead of to the Old Country. Or stayed in New York. At least they had real seasons there.

Though if he were honest with himself, then he’d have to admit that the source of his depression wasn’t the English weather, but Kyra Blaine’s refusal to speak with him. When his girlfriend of three years had told him she was going to England because ‘she needed some space’, he had thought it was because of her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Blaine had opposed her relationship with him from the start. She had always stood by him, though. So after that unfortunate over-reaction of the dean of his last college in the USA to a harmless drunken prank of his, moving to England for both his studies and his girlfriend had seemed like a very good idea.

Richard had planned it all out, at least in his mind. He’d surprise her at her flat with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers in hand and his best suave smile on his face, showing her that not even the Atlantic Ocean, much less her parents, could keep them apart! It would be the kind of romantic gesture she loved, and they’d celebrate all night.

He had shown up at her flat as planned, only to find out that she needed some space from him. Which she had told him in no uncertain terms. One word had followed the other, tempers had risen, and by the time he had left her apartment, they definitely were no longer a couple. Richard had handed over the flowers to the cab driver that had taken him home - the man’s wife would appreciate them better than his ex-girlfriend - and had drunk the bottle by himself. Which explained his current slight headache.

Though another pint of ale in this pub he was sitting in would deal with that headache. It wouldn’t do anything for his heartache though. And he couldn’t head home. He wouldn’t give his mother, who had claimed he wouldn't last half a year abroad, the satisfaction of being right. That, and the tuition was paid already. The Rodgers couldn’t afford to write off that kind of money, or the costs for moving here, the deposit for his flat… he was stuck in England for the foreseeable future, so he might as well stick it out. Show Kyra that he hadn’t come for her, and his mother that he could cut it in the land of Shakespeare.

He ordered another ale. At least England had a decent drinking age, even if the weather left a lot to be desired.

After three ales he was feeling… not better, but less depressed. Not angry, but … defiant. Yes, defiant. He was Richard Rodgers. Up and coming author, as soon as he finished his first book and found a publisher. He was a handsome and charming American student in England. He didn’t need Kyra. There were other girls. Prettier girls. Girls who’d tell him if they wanted to break up, instead of moving away. Girls who’d tell him before he followed them to Europe!

He tore his gaze away from the window - night had fallen, not that the view had been great before - and started to look for a girl to forget Kyra with. Sadly, the selection in this particular pub seemed to be lacking. The waitress was cute, but fawning over another guest. Judging by the liberties that man was taking, they were a couple. Or close enough that the burly man would take offense to anyone else hitting on the girl.

But there was a pretty girl sitting at a table, alone. She had red hair, a pale complexion with a few freckles, and probably green eyes behind her glasses. She was dressed rather conservatively - was that tweed? - too. As he studied her, she sent another patron who had hit on her away with a glare so scathing, Richard winced in sympathy. She might be a school teacher, she had that vibe.

In short, she was a challenge. Just the thing he needed - if he struck out it wouldn’t hurt since it was to be expected, but if he won her over… that would earn him the admiration of the entire pub. Take that, Kyra!

Just as Richard was about to get up and take his shot at the redhead, another girl walked in and he forgot all about the girl with glasses. The new girl was a dream come true. Milky-white skin, platin blonde hair, a figure fit for a lingerie model, curves in all the right places covered - no, emphasized - by a black leather cat suit straight out of ‘The Avengers’. She walked in with the grace of a panther despite wearing high-heeled boots a stripper would have trouble in.

Richard had left his table and was leaning at the bar next to her, having moved as quickly as he could without running. “Hi! I am Richard. I recently moved to London to finish my studies here.” He flashed his best smile at her.

The girl raised an eyebrow, but she was smiling when she looked him over. Judging by her expression, she liked what she was seeing.

“Lynn.” The girl nodded at him. “Your accent… are you American?”

“Yes. From New York, actually.”

“It’s cute. I love Americans.” She licked her blood-red lips, and Richard knew that this would be a night he’d never forget. Unlike Kyra.

*****

“Are you sure this is a shortcut, Lynn?” Richard had to step around a pile of… he didn’t want to know what it was, the smell alone was sobering.

“It’s right around the corner.” Lynn turned her head and smiled at him, once again licking her lips, and he forgot the smell.

‘Around the corner’ turned out to be a dead end. A brick wall, with a few trash cans in front. No door in sight. Women had no sense of direction. Richard smiled indulgently as he addressed Lynn. “I think you got us lost. No harm done, though, we’ll just have to backtr… Ack!”

She grabbed him and pushed him against the wall.

“Oof! Ouch! I am impatient too, but…” She was surprisingly strong for a girl, he thought.

Then her face changed to something else, and he forgot what he had wanted to say when she bit him in the throat!

He tried to scream, but one of her hands was covering his mouth, preventing him from making a sound, and the other kept him pressed against the wall. He tried to push her away, but it was like trying to push a truck; she didn’t budge an inch. Richard started to hit her, but she didn’t even react to his blows. She was just making those horrible, slurping sounds as she sucked at his throat. He could feel himself growing weaker. Colder.

Then suddenly she was gone and he was covered in ash. Panting and pressing his hand on his bleeding throat - was he going to die? Would he be found dead in a dark and dirty alley, an end straight out of a crime novel? - he saw someone else standing there. The pretty girl in tweed from the pub. She was holding a knife. No… it was a stake?

And suddenly, it clicked. “I’ve been bitten by a vampire!”

The girl muttered: “Now he realizes it.” Scowling, she pulled his hand away from his throat.

“Ouch! Hey, are you Van Helsing? His Great-great-great-granddaughter?” He was babbling, but he was still bleeding, and he had been bitten by a vampire! A real vampire, who had been staked and turned to ash in front of him!

“Hold still!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” She had a commanding voice. The kind of authority he would like to worship. And she had saved his life. Provided he didn’t bleed to death now. She pulled out a small pack from her coat - a bandage - and applied it to his wound. He wouldn’t die. Probably not.

“What’s your name? I am Richard. You saved my life. From a vampire.” He was still babbling, but it was better than crying. And he was shaking now. He had almost been killed!

“You are lucky I came by. That crazy skank who bit you ran away when I arrived. She must have been on drugs.” She was staring at him. Glaring. Daring him to disagree with her.

He could never resist that. “No, she did not! You staked her and she turned to ash!” He knew what he had seen. And felt. He started to shake his head, but the pain in his throat that caused made him stop.

The girl sighed. “If you tell that to anyone you’ll end up in an institution. You don’t want that.” With that she turned and started to walk away.

“Wait! Who are you?” He started after her, but stumbled, the abrupt movement of his head causing him more pain. “Ouch!”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “Get to a hospital before you tear the bandage off and bleed to death, Mister! And stop following leather-clad skanks into dark alleys!”

With those parting words, she briskly walked away. In his condition, he couldn’t keep up, and by the time he had reached the street she was gone. She had saved his life, and he didn’t even know her name.

He’d find her, though. After a visit to the hospital.

*****

**London, August 1989**

She was not wearing tweed the day he finally found her sitting at a table in one of the libraries in the University of London. The blouse and skirt she was wearing were still far more conservative than the attire of the other female students. Richard didn’t mind that, much, right then - he’d rather not be distracted by a sexier outfit.

“Good afternoon, Miss Van Helsing!” He sat down across from her with a smile.

She didn’t jerk, or twitch. He hadn’t expected a vampire hunter to, anyway. But he was satisfied to see her eyes widening for just a second, before she glared at him. “I am afraid you must have confused me with someone else, Mister.”

He shook his head. “I’d never forget the woman who saved my life, Miss Wilkinson. Or mistake her for someone else.” That made her twitch, and he couldn’t help but smirk in response.

She didn’t answer, but made a point of focusing on the book she was reading. His smirk grew. “Ignoring me is not going to work. You can ask just about all of my friends and they’ll tell you that I am a pretty un-ignorable kind of man.”

His reward was an annoyed look, but she put the book down again. “What do you want?”

“Straight and to the point. I like that in a woman.” He smiled at the girl and didn’t falter when she glared at him. “In short, I want in.”

“No.” She obviously didn’t have to ask what he meant.

“You think I do not want in? I think I’d know better than you what I want.” He grinned at her. Women loved a witty man who could make them laugh. He loved to banter.

“I think you do have no idea what you are asking for.”

“I think I do. Hunting vampires. Risking my life so others can live in safety and ignorance.” He gave her his best honest boy scout smile. In truth, the revelation that vampires were real had been almost as much of a shock to him as almost dying to one. And if vampires existed, what about werewolves? Ghosts? Demons? He couldn’t live in ignorance, he had to know! And he had to know how to kill them.

“You know nothing about them. Nothing about hunting. You wouldn’t even serve as bait, not with the scar warning them off.” She scoffed at him. Well, he never had been a boy scout.

His hand rubbed over the scar on his neck. It should fade a bit on its own, the doctor had said. And there was always plastic surgery. Richard hadn’t decided yet if he wanted it to be less obvious - he kind of liked the idea of telling girls that a vampire had bit him, and then laugh about it, turning it into a joke. Deceiving the truth by stating it appealed to his writer self. “That’s where you are wrong. Aren’t you wondering how I found you?”

“Dumb luck? Emphasis on ’dumb’.” She not-quite sneered at him.

“If that was the case, that would be a reason to let me join you. As the saying goes: ‘Never trade luck for skill’. Skill can be trained, experience comes with age.” He smiled at her, and barely resisted the impulse to wink and claim that he had plenty of experience. “But I actually found you thanks to good old-fashioned detective work.”

“You do not look very old-fashioned to me.” No matter her words, he had her attention now. Exposition time!

“The pub’s staff and guests remembered you, you know? A few days before we met you had started to come by every evening. And since the night you saved me, you have not returned at all. They also told me that ‘Lynn had a taste’ for foreigners and tourists, apparently going home each evening with another man. Quite an unfortunate choice of words, in hindsight.” He looked at her, but she didn’t smile at his joke. “So, based on the assumption that the vampire had used the pub as a hunting ground, I deduced that you haven’t been there by coincidence. Which meant you must have heard about missing people. There wasn’t that much in the newspapers, so you had a connection to the cops.”

“You’re wrong.” She cut in, a bit too quickly.

“I went to the police myself and passed myself off as a private eye, looking for a missing American. Most there tried to reassure me that falling off the grid wasn’t unusual for a young man away from his home country for the first time. One man though was trying to get me to drop the case. The coroner, as it happens.” He smiled at her, and noted a slight tensing of her jaw muscles. “That got me thinking. You’re not alone. You’re part of something bigger. A group that’s been hunting for a while, and has people in the right places to find their prey.”

“I really do not understand why you think I am connected to such a ‘conspiracy’, as you describe it.” She seemed cool, collected, but he thought he saw her hands twitch a bit.

“Couldn’t you have said: ‘You’ve got no proof’? I always wanted to hear someone say that.” Richard briefly pouted. So few people had a flair for the classics. “Anyway, I worked out that in order to place people in the right spots, they had to have the right skills, which meant university for a bright young woman like yourself. Medicine, or something related to vampires.” He pointed at the ‘Anatomy’ signs of the library section they were in.

“You decided to personally search every University in Greater London?” She sounded incredulous.

“In a manner of speaking.” He grinned at her and showed her the portrait he had had commissioned. The artist had been ready to strangle him by the time it had been finished, but it had turned out well enough to be recognizable. “Students are remarkably cooperative if you tell them a romantic story of a lost portrait you want to return to the pretty owner you don’t know, but have fallen in love with.”

Mary Wilkinson closed her eyes.

Before she could say anything, Richard continued. “Another thing occurred to me, you know. Movies aside, I didn’t think an organisation hunting vampires would send a young woman out by herself after such a monster. You weren’t supposed to be there, were you?”

That made her jerk and stare at him.

He leaned forward. “This can be our little secret - if you take me to your boss as a promising recruit. As you can see, I am rather good at finding out secrets.”

Mary sighed. “I’ll take you to my ‘boss’, as you put it. If he decides to have you killed instead of recruited, it’s your own fault.” She grinned evilly at him.

Richard laughed at her joke. Vampire hunters wouldn’t kill people wanting to help, would they?

*****

Three days later, Richard wasn’t so sure any more that Mary - she had allowed him to call her Mary, or rather, had stopped telling him to call her Miss Wilkinson, after a few hours - had been joking. Her ‘boss’, Mister Travers, had been quite impressive. Richard considered himself a good judge of character, and Travers had struck him as the type of man who would have people killed if he deemed it necessary. Not the kind of man one wanted to cross.

Naturally, Richard had been his usual charming self. He still got recruited as a ‘Watcher’, as the vampire hunters called themselves. He’d have to change his studies to Ancient Languages, though. A mastery of the English language was, apparently, not as important as the ability to read prophecies in ancient tomes.

On the other hand, his mentor, the Watcher showing him the ropes, so to speak, was Mary Wilkinson. The two of them were walking towards the next tube station, and she was still scowling as if someone had killed her dog. Or cat. She looked more like a cat person to him.

“You know, in some cultures, saving someone’s life means you are now responsible for him.” He smiled at her, but didn’t try to put his arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture. He could learn, no matter what his mother said. And Mary could pinch,

“If I had known that, I’d have arrived too late to save you!” the girl all but growled at him.

“You wound me!”

“Not until fencing practise.”

The way the girl was now suddenly grinning at him made Richard question his decision to hunt vampires.

*****

**London, August 1989**

“You know, I expected something more than simply swearing an oath in Travers’s office.” Richard Rodgers smiled at Mary Wilkinson while the two were walking towards the Watcher’s library. “An initiation ceremony, like the Stonemasons have. Or a vampire chained up, ready to be staked, to prove one’s dedication. Maybe a secret tattoo. For an organisation as old as yours, I mean ours, this is quite… ” He didn’t want to say ‘boring’, but it seemed lacking somehow.

“Capturing a vampire for every recruit? We’d lose more Watchers than we gained.” She sorted at him, but without any humour in her voice. “But maybe it’s you who are not taking this seriously enough. You swore an oath.”

“I know. And I will keep it. It’s just…”

“It’s just that reality doesn’t conform to your expectations. A quite normal situation for those raised on cheap television shows.” She sniffed slightly, wrinkling her nose.

He glared at her. It wasn’t as if British TV was any better … well, it was, actually. There was a reason the BBC was a legend in the business, the standard other broadcasting companies strove to reach. He’d do better avoiding that topic. “I’ll have you know that I grew up with the classics of British theatre!” His mother had used him to learn her lines, after all.

“Really? You’re a better actor than I thought then. I couldn’t tell you from the stereotype American at all.” If she stared at him with more disapproval, she’d openly sneer.

“Why, thank you! Coming from an expert on Americans, that’s a compliment indeed! You’re not doing too bad on imitating a stereotypical British snob either!”

The outraged look on her face made him chuckle loudly.

*****

**London, September 1989**

“You’ve fenced before.”

Richard grinned at Mary, who was rubbing her arm where he had struck her and was looking at him with obvious annoyance. “Well, I wasn’t lying when I told you that all my knowledge of fencing came from movies and theatre. It’s just that my mother is an actress, and her male actor friends pretty much date back to an age when fencing was mandatory for the career. As a child, I wanted to be a knight or pirate or musketeer, and I persuaded them to show me some tricks.”

“You were a stalker and blackmailer even at that young an age?” She raised her blade again. And probably her eyebrows behind her mask.

“I prefer to call it ‘persuasive’.” Richard reached out with his blade - a heavier saber than he was used to, although he had adapted quickly to it - but Mary parried his thrust, and her counter-attack hit his thigh, hard. He didn’t yelp, and his wincing was hidden by his mask. “But I assure you that I was a rather mature child.” He’d had to be, with his mother.

“And what happened to that child to regress so?” His mentor came at him with a series of furious attacks, driving him back step by step while he frantically tried to parry them. She wasn’t underestimating him any more.

There, an opening! He sought the point, stepping forward, only to find his thrust deflected, his exposed leg struck again, hard, and then swept out from under him. Unbalanced, he fell on his back and found the tip of her blade at his throat.

“We’re not learning fencing for tournaments, or the stage. We‘re learning how to fight with a blade against monsters that are stronger and faster than any human.” She withdrew the saber, then raised it in a slightly mocking salute.

“Indiana Jones had the right idea about that,” he muttered, getting up.

“He wasn’t facing a vampire,” Mary commented. “Guns don’t hurt the undead.”

“Not at all?” That sounded a bit odd. “What about silver bullets?”

“Those are for werewolves. Bullets, silver or lead, do not do much to vampires. Stakes, blessed blades and crossbows are more effective. Even if that’s hard to understand for a gun-crazy yankee.”

He huffed indignantly. “The rednecks down south are the gun-crazy ones. We yankees are rather sensible.” About guns, at least.

“I’d not call a man volunteering to fight vampires ‘sensible’.” She shook her head slightly as she positioned herself for an attack again.

“That’s ok. You can call me ‘handsome’, ‘brave’, and ‘dashing’ instead.” He bowed to her, in an imitation of a courtier’s bow. In response, he received a blow to the head. “Ow! I am looking forward to using crossbows. At least you can’t hurt me with them.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Mister Rodgers.” She had to be smirking at him, he just knew it.

“Call me Richard, or Rick.” He struck at her again, driving her back a few steps, before she turned the tables on him again. Painfully.

It’d be a long lesson, he could tell that already.

*****

**London, October 1989**

If he had known how much he had to study, Richard Rodgers would never have become a Watcher. Probably not, in any case. They really could do with a primer, ‘Vampire hunting for dummies’, or something like it. On the other hand, the material the Watcher library had was fascinating for anyone who was interested in books - like any good author would be. If only most of it wasn’t written in the most boring, dry manner…

Sighing, he turned another page on the account of a fight against a Master Vampire in 1816 in Romania, then glanced over at Mary. She was watching him. It was to be expected - an organisation such as the Watcher’s Council wouldn’t trust a ‘bloody colonial’ like him that quickly. If only she wouldn't treat the task as if it was a punishment detail. It wasn’t as if it was a chore to spend time with a handsome, charming man such as himself. For a woman, at least.

He flashed a quick grin at her. “I now completely understand why you set out to hunt a vampire by yourself.”

He could see she didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t help it. “What do you mean?”

“It beats reading dozens of books written by people who couldn’t write.”

“I would think that having written actual, _published_ books demonstrates that they could, in fact, write.” She flashed her teeth at him in an overly friendly smile. He shouldn’t have told her he was an aspiring author in an attempt to impress her.

“If by write you mean ‘using grammar and spelling correctly’, you’d be right. But most of those books are not written well. It’s a chore to read them, and even more of a chore to find anything of relevance inside them.” He almost stabbed his finger at a particularly offending paragraph, but he wouldn’t risk a repeat of what had happened last time Mary had thought he didn’t properly care for books. She didn’t respect his safeword either.

“The great author has spoken his judgement. I suppose you will rewrite them then? The library could always do with more help.”

“On second thought, they are not that bad.” He weakly smiled at the girl, and focused on his reading again. Or tried to. He didn’t last longer than a few minutes. “So, when will I meet the Slayer?” That had been a revelation: The Vampires’ Scythe - or should that be ‘Stake’? - was a teenage girl, chosen by destiny, and gifted with superhuman powers.

“If you’re lucky, never.”

“What? Why would I be lucky if I never met her? The one girl with the power to fight the forces of darkness. The chosen one. Immortal - in a twisted sense of the word. A tragic hero in the best sense of the word. The books an author could write about her…” he trailed off, with a faint smile on his face.

“Mister Rodgers.”

“I’ve told you, call me Richard. Or Rick.” He beamed at her.

She glared at him. “There have been books written about her. The Watcher Journals. As you’d know, if you’d read them, a Slayer’s life is short and violent. As the only girl in the world strong enough to deal with the worst threats to humanity, a Slayer and her Watcher are always where they are needed the most. And where they are the greatest risk. If you’d meet the Slayer, it would mean she needed help from other Watchers. Which generally implies a mission too dangerous for a Slayer by herself. I do not think I have to explain to you the odds of surviving such a mission.”

“Oh.” That made a frightening amount of sense. Although, now that he thought of it… “You know, I half-expected Mister Travers to send me on my first mission as fast as possible. He didn’t seem too impressed by me.”

“I am your mentor. You’ll get on a mission when I deem you ready, not before.” The way she frowned made him think...

“Oh I didn’t know you cared!” Smiling widely at the scowling girl, he winked. She looked away. Adorable.

He continued studying in a much better mood. The Rodgers charm was having an effect!

*****

**London, December 1989**

“For a ‘fledgling’, this vampire is quite the overachiever,” Richard Rodgers managed to say while running for his life up a flight of stairs, his shoes making squelching noises on the steps wet with rain. Slick too - he had almost slipped twice already.

Next to him, Mary Wilkinson shot him a glare. “That’s no fledgling, but an experienced vampire.” She flinched a bit when they heard the sounds of superhuman strength tearing a sturdy door into pieces behind them. “That won’t hold it for long.”

“And we cannot outrun it,” Richard added. Not without the sun up to offer them protection in the open. Or what passed for the sun in the fog and rain of London in winter. What had possessed him to think stalking a vampire in an abandoned factory at night was a good idea? Or to believe Mary, the girl who went to hunt a vampire by herself, at night, when she claimed that they could handle it? Granted, she had saved his life, and she was pretty, but she might just have killed them both.

“We need a plan.” Mary was panting now, huffing between words.

“Apart from splitting up, and hoping it’ll get confused, I don’t see…” he trailed off when he spotted a particular piece of abandoned machinery. “I’ve got a plan!” Rushing forward, he started to work on the valves. Hopefully it had not… the liquid flowing out and spreading on the ground looked good enough to him.

“I am not certain that I like your plan,” Mary stated, standing next to him. When he fished out a zippo from his jacket, she added: “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t. I carry a lighter with me in case I meet a pretty woman who smokes.”

“Why am I not surprised, Mister Rodgers?”

“Call me Rick. And I’d say it’s because you’re a know-it-all.” He smiled at her, showing his teeth. Impending death made him a bit testy.

Her response was cut off by the vampire chasing them dropping down in front of them. When it stood up from its crouch, a wide grin exposing its fangs, Rick lit his zippo and dropped it in the spilled gasoline. He saw the demon’s yellow eyes widening with shock and surprise in the second before the puddle it was standing turned into a bonfire.

“Yes! It worked!” Richard exclaimed, balling his fists as the vampire turned to ashes.

“You were lucky. What if the gas had evaporated since the factory had closed down?” Mary had, like himself, retreated to a safe distance.

“The important thing is, it didn’t.” He frowned at her. “And I told you, it’s better to be lucky than skilled.”

“Of course you’d think that, Mister Rodgers.” She sniffed.

“I told you, call me….” he trailed off when he noticed that the fire was not dying out, but spreading.

“Did you close the valve down?” Mary asked, but his face must have given her his answer already, since she was slightly ahead of him when the two started running for their lives for the second time that night.

They made it out just before the factory went up behind them.

“I do not think that this will make for a good report for the Council,” Richard said. So much for the plan of impressing the old men with their initiative.

“No, it wouldn’t.” Mary shook her head.

“We probably shouldn’t be here when the fire brigade and the police arrive.” Richard looked around for any witnesses.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Mary agreed with him again.

As they started to run away for the third time that night, Richard vowed to take up jogging. It seemed far more useful for a vampire hunter than anything else. At least if judging by his experiences so far.

*****

“Why are you so fixated on hunting vampires?” Richard asked as they were walking normally a good fifteen minutes later. Less tiring, and less suspicious. He could still hear the sirens of the emergency services reacting to the fire behind them. And to their right side.

“They are a danger to humanity. A mass-murdering disease who needs to be contained at any cost.” Mary stated without looking at him. She might have been searching a cab, or a working phone booth to call one.

“That’s the party line. But the other Watchers are not as reckless as you. We almost died twice today because of your wish to kill a ‘fledgling’. So, I don’t really believe it’s just duty that makes you go out alone.” He tried to look as earnest as possible at her.

This time she met his eyes. “No one asked you to come with me. You insisted.”

“And it was a good thing I did, or you’d be dead,” he said in a flat voice.

“You don’t know that.“ She glared at him, but she sounded a bit too defensive.

“Bullshit. Do you even carry a lighter?”

“Of course.” She showed him a cheap plastic model. “You’re not the only one who can think of setting things afire.”

“Well, you didn’t. Not today at least.”

“I would have.”

“Of course you’d have.” His sarcasm was so thick one could have cut it with a knife. She grinded her teeth and whirled away from him. He huffed. “For God’s sake, woman! I saved your life tonight!” It was a cheap shot, but he had not much else to say.

“Then that makes us even!” she spat over her shoulder and started to walk away at a brisk pace.

“That’s not what I meant!” He ran after her, then grabbed her arm. Or tried to - she twisted away, and he found himself flying through the air, then landing on the pavement, hard. Pain shot through his leg. “Ow!” He had forgotten that she was very well trained in Aikido and Judo. And that she was quite ready to use her skills.

For a moment, Mary stared at him, mouth slightly open as if she was surprised by her own action. Then she huffed, and turned away. Richard started to stand up, but as soon as he put weight on his left leg, his ankle seemed to explode with pain, and he collapsed with a scream. Mary stopped and looked at him, hesitating.

“I think I’ve broken my ankle.” He touched it, and winced at the pain.

“Let me check.” Before he could protest, she had crouched down and grabbed his foot, poking it and twisting it around, ignoring his howls of pain. “No, it’s just sprained.”

“Since when are you a doctor? You act more like a torturer!” He clenched his teeth together, gripping his leg in a futile effort to deal with his pain.

“In any case, you cannot walk. There’s a phone booth ahead, I’ll call a cab.” With that she left him on the cold, damp street. Not for the first time, Richard asked himself what he was doing here. Looking at her walk away, in thight pants, gave him one answer, at least.

Fortunately, Mary didn’t take long. A few minutes later she was back with him. “We’ll have to wait a bit.”

He nodded at her, and scooted back until he could lean against the nearest wall. Mary remained standing for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, then sat down next to him. They remained like that for a bit. Richard couldn’t tell how long, the pain in his ankle was too distracting.

Suddenly, the girl spoke up again. “My brother was killed by vampires. He was a Watcher too. Since then, my parents have done what they could to keep me safe, or as safe as a Watcher can get. Research duty, secretary jobs, that kind of work. They would lock me up in a cell if they could get away with it.”

“And you hate it,” he said. It was obvious.

“I’d go mad in such a life. To see the others go out, fighting, risking their lives, losing their lives, while I sit back and stay safe…” She snorted. “I’d feel like a coward, like I was letting my brother down.”

“So that’s why you moonlight as Miss Van Helsing.” He didn’t mention that he thought she was already at least a bit crazy. “There’s something to be said for growing old though.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Coming from a man who all but blackmailed me into helping him to risk his life?”

“Touché,” he acknowledged. “But I am not completely reckless. I plan to have a plan in advance next time.” Frowning, he added: “That sounded much better in my head.”

Mary laughed at it, at least. Both were slightly dirty from their frantic flight through one of the ruins of Britain’s former industry, and he couldn’t tell what were smudges and what were freckles on her face. Suddenly, he had a thought. “I just realized that Travers must really hate me!”

Blinking, she frowned. “Why do you think that?”

“He assigned me to a mentor with suicidal tendencies!” It all made sense now!

She hit his biceps for that remark, but half-heartedly. His flippant remark probably struck a bit too close to home, he realized.

He didn’t apologize though, but continued. “Violent too.”

Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall, heedless of the dirt it left in her hair. “Do you ever shut up?”

“I’ve got a reputation to maintain. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tone it down if you’ll tone down your efforts to get us both killed.” He grinned at her.

“You won’t try to stop me from going hunting?” She didn’t sound as defiant as he expected. Almost vulnerable.

“Do you think you’re the only who’d get mad stuck in a library?” He raised his eyebrows at her and grinned.

The arrival of a cab down the street prevented her from answering. She stood up and waved, then started to shout when the cab driver seemed to have missed her. Richard wasn’t surprised that the cab stopped, then turned towards them - Mary was hard to ignore.

Before the cab reached them, she bent down and held her hand out to him. He took it, then used the opportunity to slip his arm around her shoulders - just to be able to stand up, of course. She briefly rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t slip away when the cab driver came to help him too.

Once inside the cab, he turned his head to look at her. “So, deal?”

She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded, with the hint of a smile. “Deal.”

“My dear, I think this is the start of a wonderful relationship! I mean partnership! Partnership!” He held up his hands as Mary started to frown.

“I know exactly what you meant.”

“Perfect! I love experienced women!” He grinned, until her elbow met his ribs. “Ow! Apple, Apple!”

*****

**London, January 1990**

Richard Rodgers was a happy man. His career as an author was not making much progress, yet, and he was still a junior Watcher, or would be, if that was not a far too modern term for the Council. But as far as his love life was concerned, he couldn’t complain. His accidental arson last month had broken the ice, so to speak. Had melted the heart of the Ice Princess. Well, it had started to melt Mary’s heart.

But the work he had been assigned… the longer he had to sift through dusty journals written in ancient English, the less crazy Mary’s decision to hunt on her own was looking. The author he knew was in him was all but screaming at the way those old Watchers had managed to turn exciting, desperate battles against demons into entries so dry, they’d bore an accountant to death. All that inspiration, going to waste! If only they had had a little bit of flair, of writing talent!

If only… he blinked. He had more than a bit of talent, if he did say so himself. As an author too. It would even be legal - copyright hadn’t even been invented when most of those stories had been penned. And hadn’t Shakespeare himself taken his inspiration from older stories? What was good enough for the most famous author of the world would certainly be good enough for Richard Rodgers. Oh, yes, he’d write stories to do justice to those tales he could feel more than see behind those dry entries!

“What have you done now?” Mary’s question, laced with suspicion, interrupted his thoughts. Apparently the young British Watcher hadn’t been that engrossed in her own book.

“Nothing!” He quickly answered. And almost as quickly he realized that he had made a mistake.

Her green eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “You had that look you have when you’re about to do something stupid.”

“You’ve been studying my looks? Why, my dear, I am flattered!” He flashed her a smile and winked.

She didn’t get flustered though. “Don’t try to change the subject. What were you thinking of?”

“A romantic evening involving you, me, and a good bottle of French wine?” He smiled at her hopefully.

“I do not believe you.” Mary had stood up and was walking around the table separating them.

“A hot tub?” He scooted a bit back, just in case.

Her eye twitched slightly, and he added quickly “With bathing suits, of course. Or bikinis. Or parts of them.”

She put a hand on the backrest of his chair and bent down until their noses were almost touching each other. “The last time you were that evasive, we almost burned to death in a crypt.”

“I admit that the water balloons filled with gasoline need a bit more work, but the principle is sound. Even the official Watcher Manual lists ‘fire’ as one of the most effective ways to deal with demons.” He just had to lean a bit forward to kiss her. She’d probably kill him, but it would be worth it.

“We do not have an ‘official Watcher Manual’.” Mary was speaking slowly now, a sign that she was losing her patience. Not that she had much of that to begin with.

“Well we should have one! I keep telling you, those journals are awfully written. If those books were weapons, they’d be blunt and rusty and easily broken!”

“Richard…” her lips parted, showing her teeth. Damn, she was hot like this!

“I was thinking I should rewrite some of those books. Sort of.” He didn’t know why he blurted that out. She wouldn’t kill him. Not even hurt him, really.

She blinked in surprise, and her mouth opened. For a moment, she looked very vulnerable, and very cute. “What?”

“I was thinking that those histories deserve better than be told in an accountant’s prose. I intend to do better.” He kept eye contact. Getting caught trying to sneak a peek down her blouse would not end well.

“That’s…” She still looked slightly confused.

“Brilliant? Innovative? Revolutionary?” He flashed her his best seductive smile. Women loved confident men.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s none of that! Why do you think the Council would even want such rewrites? We’re not a public library!”

“Well, I wouldn’t do this for the Council…” His smile wavered a bit when she glared at him.

“What? You… you want to use your sacred history to write stories?” Mary took a deep breath.

Richard hastened to interrupt her before she could really get going. “Think of the potential! The good it could do, to show - although in a form that wouldn’t expose the Council’s work, of course - the truth about vampires. None of that romantic drivel so common in movies and novels lately. Stories that show the horror of those creatures, and at the same time, expose their weaknesses. If only one life would be saved by reading such a story, wouldn’t the time be well-spent?”

He could see she was considering it. Her outrage dwindling, faltering. “Tell you what - I’ll write it, and you’ll be the first to read it. You can decide then if it’s stupid or not.”

“Alright. At least if you’re writing a novel you won’t do anything more dangerous.”

It wasn’t the most rousing endorsement, but he’d take what he could get from her.

And she was calling him Richard now.

*****

**London, March 1990**

Two months, three vampires and one near-death experience (which was all Mary’s fault, honest) later, Richard Rodgers was done with his first novel. He wasn’t counting his other attempts. Those had lacked real inspiration. And his first and most important reader was currently perusing his opus. She wasn’t looking disgusted, but she wasn’t looking enraptured either. Maybe it was just the angle? He leaned to the side until he was almost falling from his chair. No, still no rapture nor disgust.

“If you try to look up my skirt I’ll kick you. In the face.” She didn’t look up from the manuscript.

A second later Richard was sitting up straight and proper. “I wasn’t trying to look up your skirt.” Not that it would have worked, anyway - it was a proper skirt, not a miniskirt. Proper for the season, and proper for a Watcher.

“Mh.” She still wasn’t looking at him. Was that a good sign? For him, or his book?

He started to tap his fingers, then stopped. Patience. Even his mother had said he needed more patience. He was patient. Like a rock. Or something. A cat. Cats were patient. They could lie in wait for a mouse to show up for hours, couldn’t they? On the other hand, they were easily distracted by anything moving and shiny. Jesus, he was a cat person! He always thought of himself as a dog - loyal, brave, dependable. Sort of. Slightly goofy, maybe. Women liked that.

“You do realize that I will take at least a few hours to finish this, do you?” Mary’s amused voice interrupted his attempt at introspection. “Are you planning to watch me read for hours?”

“I could watch you for hours every day.” He blinked. That had just slipped out. For the first time in this conversation, Mary looked at him. “I’ll go over the catalogue of the 14th century journals again.” As he turned to leave their table, he saw she was smiling.

He still didn’t know what she thought of his book, but he didn’t mind waiting a bit longer to find out.

*****

“So, what do you think?” Richard asked as soon as Mary entered the part of the Council library they had taken over. He wasn’t impatient. Mary had had a whole day, and evening, to read his book. More than enough time to finish it.

“About what?” Mary asked while she started to lay out her notes on the table.

“You know. The book.” He was tapping his foot on the floor now.

“Which book?” Mary looked at him, as if she was confused.

“You know which one I mean! The book.” He was clenching his fingers. The woman was teasing him, he knew it. And she was enjoying it.

“Ah, that one.” She looked at the ceiling, as if collecting her thoughts. “Hm.”

“Hm?”

She smiled. “I hate to admit it, but you do have some talent as a writer. Of course, the events you used as inspiration were almost completely mangled.”

He beamed at her. “Great! That means we don’t run the danger of anyone from the old guard recognizing the story.” And any competent editor would mangle the story further anyway. He knew that much about the business - his mother counted a number of authors among her friends.

“You intend to use a nom de plume then?” Mary asked while handing the manuscript back to him. Of course she’d know the term.

“Yes. Richard Edgar Castle.” No one would connect that to him.

Mary nodded and sat down. She was wearing a shorter skirt today. It ended just above the knee. If one squinted a bit.

“Aren’t you going to ask about the significance of the name?”.

“I am certain you’ll tell me all about it soon enough without encouragement.”

He pouted. Oh, she knew him well. Just not in the way he wanted her to know him most. “So, you did like it.”

“Yes.” She nodded.

Yes! He balled his hands into fists.

“Of course, finding an editor will be difficult. Fantasy novels are not exactly bestsellers.”

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’ll set a new trend.”

“Buy a lot of chocolate. I hear it helps dealing with rejection.”

Neither glaring nor pouting seemed to affect her in any way.

*****

**London, July 1990**

“Another rejection?” Mary asked, looking up from the book on Polgara Demons’ life cycles. Richard Rodgers knew she had been taking her work home for quite some time. That was nothing unusual if the work consisted in researching information found in books. But she had started to take her work to his home too. That was a good sign. It showed she had grown comfortable around him. Enough to ignore him for the evening in favor of working. In his home. They might skip the wedding part of their relationship and go straight to estranged couple. Maybe it wasn’t that good a sign as he had thought.

He didn’t answer her, just crumpled up the letter and threw it in the wastepaper bin. Well, towards it - it fell short a bit, denying him even that success. Richard had kept his first rejection letter, planning to keep it as a motivation. And a future conversation starter for when he was rich and famous. But that letter had just been the first of a series, a wave of such rejections. There was only one explanation for that: Those publishing houses needed employes with a better eye for literary quality!

“How many rejections does that make?” Mary asked, in that tone that made it impossible to tell if she was being sympathetic, or teasing, or both.

”I don’t keep count.” It was the twenty-first.

“Mh.” She went back to reading her book.

“The next one will accept my manuscript and prove everyone else wrong.” He raised his chin slightly. Not that she’d pay attention. Impossible woman.

“Of course.” She was humouring him in order to mock him. If someone else, say one of the fossils on the Council, would have been the target, he’d have loved it.

“What did you find out about the disappearances in Birmingham?” He wasn’t abandoning the discussion. He was just delaying it a bit. Say, until he got an offer from a publisher.

“It’s not a vampire. One victim disappeared at noon, and from a spot unreachable without being exposed to sunlight” Mary said.

“Or what you English try to pass off as sunlight,” Richard grumbled.

“At least our winters do not include blizzards, and we don’t die in the streets from heat stroke in summer,” Mary shot back.

“I’ll have you know that you can live a year in New York without suffering un-airconditioned air.” He sniffed indignantly.

“So you say. Am I supposed to take this on faith value, like your claims about the viability of paintball guns for vampire hunting?” Mary smirked at him.

“It would work, if we could get a decent reloading setup.” He had it all worked out. Theoretically.

“Or a priest willing to bless paint?” She chuckled, just a bit. It had been a decent idea. Once he was rich from his books, he’d hire someone to put it all together. No, to teach him how to do it without wrecking the thing.

“One day you’ll see my genius at work.” He sighed.

“And one day you’ll show me the paradise you call home?” Her hints had become a bit stronger lately. He’d love to show her New York, if not for a little complication.

“Yes, I’ll show you New York, the best, brightest city of the world, and all its wonders. But we couldn’t leave while people disappear in Birmingham, could we?”

The doorbell interrupted her answer. Who would arrive at such a late hour? For a moment he imagined one publisher being so excited after reading his story that they sent a courier with a contract offer to make sure no one else beat them to the punch. Then he discarded that fantasy like all the others he’d had over the years about the start of his career as a bestselling author. Fantasy author now.

“Are we expecting someone?” Mary stashed the book in her bag and moved toward the chest where Richard’s crossbow was stashed.

“No, we aren’t.” He caught the stake she threw to him then walked to the door, waiting until she had the crossbow ready. The doorbell kept ringing. Whoever was waiting was impatient. If it was a mormon... were there mormons in England? Richard peered through the spyhole and paled. The stake almost slipped from his grasp. When he turned to Mary she tensed up as soon as she saw his desperate face.

“It’s my mother!”

*****

“Really, Richard, what did you expect? You never write, you rarely call, you don’t tell me anything about this new job of yours… any mother would come to check up on her only child in this situation!” Martha Rodgers declared with all the drama an actress with decades of experience was capable of while she deftly avoided spilling any of the wine in her glass. Wine he had bought for himself and Mary. But telling his mother to get herself a drink from the kitchen had been the only way to get her out of the living room so Mary could move the crossbow from where she had dropped it behind the couch back into the chest.

“Most would stick to using the phone themselves instead of making the trip across the Atlantic for a surprise visit!” Richard was doing his best to match his mother glass for glass. That bottle had been rather expensive, and he wanted his share.

“Pish posh!” His mother finished her glass, then grabbed the bottle for a refill. “You’d never have told me about your new girlfriend over the phone. That would have meant admitting that I was right about Kyra.” She turned to Mary, who was watching her with a mixture of amusement - at Richard’s expense! - and the kind of slight shock Martha often caused to people who met her for the first time. “I told him she was breaking up with him, but was too cowardly to say so. ‘Going to London to get some space’ - what woman would say that and mean it?” Martha didn’t give Mary any chance to answer before she continued. “He didn’t believe me when I told him she would not stick with him against the wishes of her parents. A mother knows.”

“You told me that a week after you had met her. That was over three years ago!” He would have prefered to tell Mary himself of one - one! - of the reasons he had moved to London. At a moment of his own choice too. Say, a few months or years after their wedding. But Hurricane Martha had never cared much about his wishes, and wouldn’t start caring now.

“And I was right.” Martha smiled at him with that impossibly smug expression he was so familiar with, then looked at Mary. “He never listened to me as a child, and never grew out of that phase.”

“I’d say he still has yet to grow up.” Mary was smiling while his mother agreed with her! The traitor!

Richard glared at both of them, but that just made them chuckle and giggle together. He decided to save the shreds of his dignity and not descend to their level, and instead filled his own glass again.

“So, tell me about yourself, Mary. How did you two meet?” Martha asked with a predatory air her innocent tone couldn’t really hide.

Both of them froze for a second. “We met in a bar,” Mary answered, glancing at him.

“Yes. She saved me from a very pushy woman.” He smiled at her while her glance turned into a glare. Didn’t she know that one had to stick as close to the truth as possible when lying?

“What possessed you to do such a thing, dear?” Martha Rodgers asked Mary, making a show out of staring at the woman’s rather conservative clothes. “I cannot imagine you frequenting the kind of bars my son would visit in New York.”

“To tell the truth, I had developed a strong dislike of the woman he was with when I met him. I would have interceded for just about every man caught in her clutches,” Mary said conspiratorially.

Richard gaped at her behind his mother’s back while Martha laughed.

His girlfriend smiled sweetly. “He later tracked me down at the university to thank me, and we ended up as co-workers by chance.”

“That must have been a real shrew of a girl for him to thank anyone of driving her off. He wasn’t drunk, was he?” His mother proceeded in her attempts to assassinate his character in front of his girlfriend.

“I’ll have you know, I was not drunk at all, mother!” A beer or two didn’t count.

“I’m sure you weren’t, dear.” Martha Rodgers dismissed him with a wave of her hand and that patronizing attitude he was so familiar with. He really hoped Mary wasn’t taking notes.

“Speaking of work… what is it exactly that you do? My son was quite proud of having found, finally, gainful employment. Of course he had to leave the country to achieve that. But he was rather unwilling to provide details about his work during his very rare phone calls. I had feared the worst, to be honest, given his past exploits.” The actress sighed theatrically.

“We’re working at a private library, mother. A very private, very distinguished, very British library,” Richard managed to get out between grinding his teeth.

“Indeed, Mrs. Rodgers.” Mary nodded.

“Miss Rodgers,” Martha corrected her.

“The library belongs to a private society involved in archeology and history, with a long tradition of financing private expeditions. Their archives go back centuries, and require quite a lot of work to be maintained,” Mary went on in that prim, proper English upper class accent of hers.

Martha looked duly impressed, and surprised. “I’m glad to see my son is finally making something out of his life. Did you know he was planning to become an author for most of his teenage years? That was one of the reasons Kyra’s parents were so opposed to their relationship, you know.”

“Oh, I am very aware of his literary ambitions, Miss Rodgers.” Mary smiled far too sweetly in Richard’s opinion.

“Oh, dear! Did he force you to read his manuscripts? It was cute when he was twelve, and they weren’t that long, but later…” His mother shuddered dramatically.

“When did you say your flight back was scheduled for again, Mother?”

“Richard!” Both his mother and his girlfriend were looking at him reproachfully. Dear Lord, they were bonding! Hell, he was starting to curse like a native even in his own head!

He went to the kitchen to get the next bottle. He wouldn’t survive the evening without more alcohol.

*****

**London, August 1990**

He had gone through hell. His pride, his self-esteem, his sanity had barely survived. But he had persevered. And after four weeks, his mother was finally returning to New York. Richard Rodgers had personally driven her to Heathrow, just to make sure she didn’t miss her plane and had to spend another night at his flat. He couldn’t wait to see her gone. Really.

“I am telling you, Richard, only you could find a conservative English girl who shared your fantasies,” Martha Rodgers said while her baggage - which had mysteriously multiplied during her stay in London - was checked in.

“The way you say it, Mother, you make it sound as if it’s something dirty.” He didn’t quite check if anyone was listening in, but he glared at an older gentleman who was eyeing them just in case.

“Don’t worry about me judging you if you like to play ‘Vampire Hunter’ in the bedroom using authentic props. It’s obviously the fault of my acting genes finally making an appearance.” His mother sighed. “I should have made more of an effort to raise you properly.”

“You didn’t make much of an effort to raise me at all.” Nannies and boarding schools didn’t count, in his opinion. If he ever had children, he’d make sure they’d be raised better. And saw their grandmother maybe once a year. Under supervision. No telling what they could be picking up from the impossible woman otherwise.

“Oh Richard!” She actually patted his cheek! “But at least you’ve found a woman who believes you, and in you. That’s something to be proud of.”

“Thank you, mother,” he said while smiling toothily at her.

“A mother should be always supportive of her children’s endeavours. Even if they do not work out.” Martha nodded sagely.

“I am sure my manuscript will be accepted by the next publisher.” Someone had to recognize a future bestseller if they saw it. Otherwise, how could any publisher stay in business?

“Of course, dear. Never give up, I always say. I wouldn’t have gotten the lead in ‘As you like it’ if I had let rejections worry me."

“You didn’t get the lead role in that play, mother.” He sighed when he saw her smile. “Please, be careful back home, mother. Wear the cross I bought you, and don’t invite anyone in.”

“I will certainly not hide this marvelous gift you must have spent half your paycheck on!” Martha smiled, but Richard knew she was just humouring him. Then she grew serious as well. “Look, Richard. Mary is a very nice girl. Charming, cultured, tolerant of your foibles...”

He held up his hand to interrupt her. “Mother, we went over that already.”

“I am just saying. If you plan to marry her, then one of you needs to be the responsible one for the marriage to work out. And you are not very responsible.”

“Mother.” He didn’t ask how she would know that, not having been married herself. Or being responsible at all.

“Promise me, Richard, that you’ll not do anything rash. Please.” She smiled at him, and he sighed.

“Of course not, Mother. As long as you take precautions.” He looked at her with as much seriousness as he could muster. The thought of her falling prey to a vampire or other demon, just because he had not managed to convince her...

“Against vampires.” She stared at him.

“Yes.” Was it so hard to believe?

“Alright, dear. If only so you will not blame me for whatever mess you make while being distracted with worry about me.” She hugged him, and he could feel her trembling slightly. As much as he claimed she had never been around when he was growing up, they had never been separated for as long as they had been since he had moved to London.

“Mother.” He nodded at her as she turned away. And closed his eyes in embarrassment when she started to flirt with the older gentleman who had been watching them. He doubted she’d ever change. And he didn’t really want her to. Most of the time.

*****

“Did everything go well at Heathrow?” Mary asked as soon as he stepped through the door. She hadn’t been around as much as usual while his mother had been in town. Understandably, really. Martha Rodgers was best met in small doses.

“Unless she missed the plane because she was having an affair with a fellow traveler she picked up at the transit lounge, yes.” He closed the door, locking it carefully, and plopped down on the couch.

Mary laughed, then stopped when she realized he hadn’t been joking. “You know, when you told me you were the responsible one in your family, I didn’t believe you.”

“No one does. Story of my life.” He sighed.

Mary went to the kitchen. “Did you convince her to take precautions?”

“She said she’d wear the cross and stop inviting people to her apartment. I believe she’ll do the first, but not the second.” He sighed. “We should have gone with my plan.”

“And how would we have managed to overpower a vampire and transport it with us to your flat? Without anyone calling the bobbies?” he heard Mary ask.

“A coffin wouldn’t have been that suspicious.” Less than a body-bag, at least.

“Perhaps not in a frat house in New York. But we’re in London.” She returned with a beer for him, and a soda for herself. “And you never came up with a plan to actually take a vampire captive with just the two of us.”

Taking the beer, he went through his mail. Bill, bill, ad, rejection letter from a publisher… he froze and stared. He was actually holding his breath. ‘Dear Mr. Rodgers… glad to offer… some changes...’ He had dreamed of this moment, of what to say, exactly, when it happened, but now that it had come true, he simply handed the letter over to Mary with a silly smile on his face.

Mary’s shriek warned him a second before she jumped on his lap. He still spilled part of his beer. Neither he nor she cared. “You’ll be published! Oh, Richard! I am so happy for you!”

“Was there ever any doubt? Don’t answer that!” he quickly added, holding her. His proposal would have to be edited, of course. Partially rewritten, probably. It would be a lot of work. But his dream was coming true. Finally. He would have commented on the fact that this letter arrived just after his mother had left, and not a day before, as proof that the universe liked to play games with him, but Mary was already pulling at his shirt.

The next day he had a terrible time trying to explain to his nosy neighbour that he hadn’t loudly celebrated his mother’s departure.

*****

**New York, December 1990**

“Oh, Richard. I am so proud of you!” His mother hugged him, slightly tipsy from the champagne. She was, he realised - she was telling everyone around them that her son was now a published author. Richard suspected that his mother hadn’t really believed him until she had held the advance copy in her hand. The timing of the letter had just been a bit too suspicious for her. But she was wearing the cross he had given her.

Richard and Mary had flown over to New York for the launch of his book. It wasn’t a big affair for the publisher - just another paperback novel on the market. But for him, Mary and his mother, it was a big event. He was a published author, earning money with his writing. If he still was with Kyra, her parents would have to eat their words now! Maybe he should send them a copy of his book.

Mary’s parents didn’t know ‘Richard Castle’ was their daughter’s boyfriend, of course. They might be less understanding than their daughter of Richard using Watcher journals as inspiration. Though truth to be told, after the editor had gone over it, the story wasn’t that recognizable any more. Although the details about the vampires and demons - he had insisted nothing there would be changed, no matter how ‘original’ it was - were spot on, which would make them suspect the author had personal experience with demons.

Which he had. In spades. Not that the Council was aware of that. As far as the other Watchers were concerned, Mary and himself were mere researchers, providing important information to the Watchers in the field. Their personal ‘hunting expeditions’ were a secret. Although he wasn’t sure how much of a secret they really were - no one of their co-workers had ever questioned their claims of having fallen down the stairs when they arrived with bruises their clothes couldn’t cover up. People couldn’t be that blind. Mary claimed they were not the only ones doing some private hunting. Richard didn’t know the other Watchers well enough to judge that - he still was ‘the Yankee’ to them, even if only Mary ever called him that to his face, and from her, it was a term of endearment.

“Mary! Did I ever tell you about Richard’s first ‘book’? He was twelve, and adorable!”

Richard knew the story by heart. So did Mary, but she was far too polite to mention it. While his mother talked to his girlfriend, Richard looked out of the window next to their table. New York at night, a wonderful and familiar sight. But it felt different now. He knew that somewhere out there, vampires and other demons would be hunting. Could he really be happy about his success while people were dying that night, murdered by creatures they didn’t even suspect existed?

“And do you know what’s the best thing about your book is, Richard?” His mother interrupted his  thoughts before he could start to brood. He was about to answer with a witty remark when she continued. “Now you’ll not be seen as crazy, but as eccentric when people discover you believe in vampires and keep props at your home!”

He glared at her, then realised that she was right, and beamed at her. “Mother, that’s a great idea! We’ll be able to keep all sorts of weapons at hand without anyone suspecting anything!” They might even be able to carry them around, claiming they were doing research!

Richard and Mary started discussing where best to display the stakes, crossbows and swords in their new flat while his mother, for once, looked flabbergasted. Richard enjoyed every second.

*****

**New York, March 1991**

‘The Vampire Hunter’ was a surprise hit, according to the sales numbers he got from his Publisher. Royalties didn’t surpass his paycheck from the Council yet, but it was getting close. And he was already working on his next book in the series. So to further boost the book’s popularity and therefore sales, they had wanted ‘Richard Castle’ to make an appearance at a few conventions, such as the 33th Annual Convention of the New York Science Fiction Society - the Lunarians. Richard Rodgers hadn’t thought twice about getting a paid trip back to New York for himself and Mary. Even if they wouldn’t be able to avoid visiting his mother.

To meet fans of his work was a really great experience. Not that there were that many of them around, but those he met were enthusiastic. A number were odd - eccentric, he corrected himself, and that had to be expected from people who loved a rather bloody tale of vampire hunters - but most were nice people genuinely happy to meet him.

Needless to say his ego got a rather large boost out of it, even though no pretty girls wanted him to sign their chests. Which, given Mary was present and could cock and load a crossbow in less than a minute, was probably a good thing. She wasn’t wearing the reasonably close version of the leather outfit he had put his female lead in that he had found at a stall at the convention, alas. But if he had interpreted a few whispered remarks of her correctly, she’d be wearing it later tonight, in their bedroom. He was, of course, looking forward to it.

“Hello Mister Castle! Would you sign my copy of your book, please?”

Richard didn’t quite stare, but he did blink at the pre-teen girl holding out a copy of ‘Vampire Hunter’ to him. She couldn’t be older than twelve, and she certainly wasn’t among the target audience for his book. Hell, while it didn’t contain actual adult material, the descriptions did get rather graphic. He managed to keep smiling, and gracefully accepted the book, but the girl’s mother must have noticed his expressions.

“She’s very advanced for her age. And she loves Fantasy novels, especially those with strong female characters.” The woman smiled in a slightly embarrassed way. Richard suspected that the girl was rather stubborn to, enough to be allowed to attend the convention. Though a fan was a fan.

“You’re a precocious child then. What’s your name?” He smiled at her, and saw her blush while he wrote ‘To my no. 1 fan...’ on the first page of her copy.

“Kate. Kate Beckett. With two ‘t’s at the end.” She craned her neck to make sure that he wrote her name down correctly, prompting another embarrassed smile from her mother.

Richard was chuckling when he handed the book back to the beaming girl. Had his mother had the same expression, back at the science fair in 5th grade?

He shouldn’t be doing this, but… he couldn’t resist. “Say, Kate, have you ever seen a real crossbow? Like the one Alice used to kill the Master Vampire’s first minion? My friend Mary over there can show it to you.”

The girl was at Mary’s side, pestering her with questions before her mother could react. He had a feeling she wouldn't rest until she could hold the crossbow too, and would be disappointed she couldn’t fire it.

Hm. A range for a crossbow… maybe some demonstrations with swords and stakes… He and Mary had the training, and he knew how to put on a show. He had to speak with his publisher.

And maybe he’d get Mary to wear the leathers for the next con.

*****

**London, July 1993**

“Have you seen the broadswords? And did you get the permits to bring them to the US? I’ve already packed the stakes and crossbows. If anyone asks, those are for camping and hunting. I’ll not get into an argument with an overly religious customs officer about Fantasy novels spreading witchcraft again!” Richard Rodgers, known to his many fans as Richard Castle, author of the very successful ‘Vampire Hunter’ series, yelled to his girlfriend Mary.

“I also packed your convention outfit as well already, I had some room left in my suitcase.” She had ‘forgotten’ her outfit for the last con. This was the Gen Con, the biggest gathering for Fantasy fans in the world. Gina Cowell, the woman handling his series for his publisher, had insisted that they needed some ‘eye-candy’ to draw attention to their booth since many attendants there would be in costume. Mary didn’t like Gina, and the feeling was mutual, but Richard’s girlfriend did acknowledge that the woman knew her business. Richard still didn’t know how his publisher had managed to persuade Mary to wear that outfit - his girlfriend had vetoed the booth babes Gina had wanted to hire, after all. Well, his was not to question why, his was just to stare and die.

“Did you return the Codex Polgari already to the library? I think Rupert asked for it, something with the incident in Wales.” Richard didn’t want to find out if the rumor that Rupert Giles, a polite, distinguished fellow watcher, would go berserk if he couldn’t get a book he needed within three days, were true. He didn’t think a man could get a nickname like ‘Ripper’ for shredding books.

He suddenly realized that Mary hadn’t answered any of his questions. She hadn’t said anything, not even told him to shut up and stop bothering her while she packed. “Mary? Darling? Is something wrong?”

He found her in the bathroom, staring at a small slip of plastic. She turned her head and looked at him with a shocked expression. “I am pregnant.”

He took a few seconds to understand what she had said. His girlfriend was pregnant. She was having a baby. He was going to be a father!

He moved to hug her, with a huge if also slightly shocked smile on his face, then froze, staring at her - still flat - stomach.

“I am pregnant, not brittle.” She scowled, then smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Richard. What will we do? When my parents hear of this…”

“We’ll marry of course. As soon as possible.” There was no way he’d follow in his unknown father’s footsteps.

She looked at him, surprised again, but nodded. “Of course.”

*****

**London, October 1993**

The wedding preparations had gone through without a hitch, despite Richard’s mother trying to help. The Wilkinsons were old money, and knew how to get things done quickly and smoothly, when the family honour was - sort of - at stake. Of course everyone suspected the reason why, after three years of living together in sin, as an old and almost deaf great-aunt had called it at a rehearsal dinner, Mary and ‘that Yankee’ were suddenly tying the knot, but no one would say anything. At least not in their presence.

It turned out that Martha Rodgers knew a surprising number of British actors and actresses, and so the groom’s side in the church wasn’t just filled with ‘more Yankees’, even though most of Richard’s American friends were quite surprised to find out he had become a librarian. Oh, how he wished he could reveal his success as an author without running the risk of earning the ire of that evil old fossil, Travers!

At least the Wilkinsons had quietly spread the word that their new son-in-law was well-off to the point of being independently wealthy. Which sufficiently impressed their Watcher friends and acquaintances - being rich and risking one’s life was quite more respectable than risking one’s life for money. Though he had a feeling that he’d still be ‘that Yankee’ for years to come.

He scoffed at the thought, drawing some glances from the guests, and a glare from his mother. Martha Rodgers had more than once mentioned that she had expected her son to wake up one day in Las Vegas with a hangover and a marriage certificate he didn’t remember getting. To see him married at a British Upper Class wedding was a dream come true for her. The amount of rich elder gentlemen among the guests impressed by a middle-aged actress didn’t hurt either, of course, no matter if they were terrible snobs or not. His mother simply had no luck with men, and no taste either. His own, unknown father being the best proof.

Richard didn’t really care. He was a successful author, with a horde of adoring fans. He was marrying a beautiful, brave and smart woman, who would soon bear his first child. And he was doing his part to protect humanity from demons. He was quite proud that he hadn't sent an invitation to Kyra, to show her and her parents just what kind of man he had become.

When Mister Wilkinson led the bride through the church gates, down the aisle, when Richard saw just how beautiful she was, in her wedding dress, he knew he had achieved his wildest dreams.

*****

 


	2. Welcome to the Family

**London, March 1994**

He was a husband and father! Richard Rodgers still couldn’t believe it, even while he was holding his daughter. Alexis Harper Rodgers. So small, so vulnerable. So … loud.

Holding his screaming daughter to his chest, gently rocking her in an attempt to calm her down, he turned to his wife: “Is this much screaming normal for a month-old baby?”

Mary, who had just fallen asleep, looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “According to my mother, yes. What did your mother say?”

“She said she would love to visit, but couldn’t stay for longer than a week at most, due to her new role in that play,” Richard answered.

“Yes, it’s normal then.” Mary turned on her side again, telling him without saying anything that he was on his own when it came to calming the little screamer down.

Rocking her back and forth - gently! - he walked out of their bedroom. Mary and lack of sleep didn’t mix well.

Alexis didn’t need her diapers changed, so she was probably hungry. Or she just felt like screaming. He wouldn’t rule out demonic possession either, but Mary claimed she had checked that.

A bit later Alexis was quietly drinking her formula while Richard tried to read up on Suvolte Demons. Apparently, the current Slayer, India Cohen, had stumbled upon an egg-smuggling ring in France, and her Watcher had required a report. Reading with a baby in his arms wasn’t that difficult. He hadn’t yet gotten the hang of making notes with the same handicap though - it wasn’t as if he could dictate the reports for the Council, unlike the draft for his next book.

But he knew he shouldn’t be complaining - most families were not in the rather comfortable situation where both parents could work more or less at home. He could hire a nanny, of course - money wasn’t an issue. He’d even be able to explain the vast amount of medieval weapons, and the odd modern variant, stashed in the flat as related to his work. The Wilkinsons would approve - it was the proper thing to do. Even if they also were subtly pushing for Mary to stop working, now that she was a mother, as that was also the proper thing to do. Their not so subtle pressure didn’t help with Mary’s mood and lack of sleep. A nanny though would. But it would also mean that he and Mary would have to watch what they said at home. There was only so much you could explain as research for a book, or as being eccentric, before the nice polite people came to check if you should be trusted with your children.

Hopefully Alexis would soon grow out of her current phase. And while he was at it, world peace would be nice as well.

*****

**London, February 1995**

The sound of silverware and dishes crashing to the floor alerted Richard to the fact that Alexis had managed to get out of her playpen, again. Fearing the worst, he raced to the dining room, then stopped short, gaping.

Alexis hadn’t just managed to break out of her baby jail, she had also figured out that by pulling on a tablecloth, she could move her first birthday cake from the middle of the table, where she couldn’t get to it, to a more accessible location, such as the floor. His daughter was such a genius!

He was still laughing at the sight of Alexis, her cute as a button face smeared with vast amount of chocolate cake that had missed her tiny mouth, sitting in the middle of the remains of the birthday dinner, when Mary arrived at his side.

“Alexis! What have you done!” his wife screeched. “Richard! Why didn’t you do something? Oh, no - that’s the good rug! And look at your face! Can’t you be a good girl, once in your life? Do you have to take after your father that much? I should spank you for this so you learn to behave!”

Alexis, who had been laughing along with her father, was now crying and sobbing. Richard quickly scooped her up and held her close, heedless of the damage that did to his clothes. Mary sent him a glare, then busied herself salvaging the dinner. At least the food hadn’t been on the table yet, but a number of the plates needed to be replaced. Richard had calmed down Alexis quickly enough, despite Mary’s outburst. Of course, knowing the Wilkinsons, he should not have been surprised that their daughter lacked somewhat in parenting skills, at least by the standards he adhered to. And given he had been raised by Martha Rodgers, that should tell anyone enough about that subject.

His mother still couldn’t really believe that Richard was the sensible one when it came to raising Alexis, even though she had visited so often, Richard had started to call her ‘the world’s most expensive babysitter’.

“Now, let’s get you cleaned up, Alexis dear, while mum resets the table!” He scooped up a particularly large cake crumb stuck to her cheek with one finger and stuck it in his mouth. Then he whispered conspiratorially to the little tyke: “You’ve got great taste, kid! I wouldn’t have been able to wait until after dinner for such a tasty cake either!”

By the time Richard had cleaned up his daughter, and then himself, Mary had reset the table, got another cake from the bakery around the corner, and got the wine in the cooler so it would be ready when the guests arrived. If she had a bit more of a head for children, she’d be the perfect woman.

“So, Alexis, for the crime of stealing your own birthday cake, you are sentenced to another hour in jail!” Richard declared with the overly serious voice that his daughter had already realized meant he was not serious at all. She was giggling loudly when he put her down behind the bars.

Mary straightened his tie as soon as he turned towards her. He pouted. “I spent minutes getting that tie just correctly crooked. I’ve got an image to maintain! Being the uncultured Yankee for a group of stuffy Brits is hard work, I’ll have you know!”

Mary fought to keep a smile off her face while she glared at him disapprovingly. Before she could say anything, though, the doorbell announced that the first guests had arrived. “Just don’t antagonize Mister Travers again,” she whispered.

“I antagonize him by merely existing,” he retorted. It wasn’t his fault the Council was led by a bloody pillock. By a damned asshole, he corrected himself.

“Richard!” Her glare intensified.

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “OK, OK. I won’t antagonize him.” When she nodded in satisfaction and some relief, he added: “unless he does it first.”

The doorbell rang again, preventing another argument. Sometimes he felt that Mary was simply too proper, and too loyal to those old idiots. He shook his head while his wife went to open the door. Even Rupert agreed with him, and the man was as British as they got, and came from an old Watcher family.

*****

**London, April 1996**

“You know, most people hire a babysitter to go out, watch a movie, have sex for longer than twenty minutes…” Richard said while working with a crowbar on the back door of an abandoned house.

“We’re not ‘most people’. We’re Watchers.”

“Not even most Watchers would hire a babysitter to go vampire hunting!” He grunted when the old wood finally splintered and the door swung open.

“Most Watchers get to hunt vampires as part of their work and are not stuck hunting information inside old books!” Mary sniffed. She held her cross in one hand and a stake in the other. With a glance towards him, she added: “Most Watchers use crossbows, swords and stakes too. Not that…”

“Very effective and very British weapon?” Richard picked the ‘Ack Pack’, also known as the ‘Flamethrower, Portable, No 2’, a World War 2-vintage British copy of a German design from World War 1, up and put the tank on.

“... ‘monstrosity’ was what I was going to say.”

“I would have gotten a more aesthetically pleasing American model, but I couldn’t get one of those as an antique here.” And his mother had refused to procure one for him in the US. One call from the police and the woman was spooked!

Mary didn’t answer, but stepped inside. He quickly followed, flamethrower ready. His wife shouldn’t be complaining. If not for this beast he wouldn’t have let her risk her life like this. Alexis needed her parents. If only Mary wasn’t so damn stubborn, and so determined to hunt vampires…

The stench of decaying flesh hit them soon after the door. “I guess this vampire is a fan of takeout food, instead of eating out.” Richard quipped. His humour got darker the more dangerous the situation went.

“As long as it doesn’t consider us a food delivery service…” Mary snorted, and then kicked open the door to what was once a living room or salon. They saw an old corpse on the table in the center, flies and maggots crawling all over it.

“Ugh. That demon never learned to clean up after itself.”

Mary glared at him, and he remembered their argument earlier that day. He didn’t know why she was still miffed - Alexis had taken her side, and cleaned up after herself! Even when he had tried to show her how to hide her mess!

Creaking floorboards gave them just enough warning for Mary to turn around and hold up her cross. The vampire that had been about to pounce on her recoiled, hissing at her and shielding its face. Richard pulled the trigger, and lit the demon up. It hadn’t even time to scream before it was just ashes falling to the floor.

“I am naming it ‘Doughnut of Death!’ he happily declared. It was a much better nickname than “Lifebuoy”, in his opinion. Though ‘Ack Pack’ had a certain charm as well.

Mary shook her head. “If the bobbies stop us with this in the car, I will claim I don’t know you and was just hitching a ride after my car broke down.”

“You would still come visit me in jail though, wouldn’t you? Do British prisons allow conjugal visits?”

She didn’t answer but continued towards the exit. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t as happy as he was - the flamethrower had performed perfectly, after all, and would make killing vampires far safer than the usual methods. He'd never understand women.

*****

**London, January 1997**

“You’re going to California, to become the new Slayer’s Watcher?” Richard Rodgers stared at Rupert Giles. His visit to their flat had been a surprise. This... was more like a shock.

“Y-yes. I was chosen to replace Watcher M-Merrick, who was k-killed in the line of d-duty in Los Angeles.” The older Watcher’s stutter was a sign that he was nervous, Richard knew. With good reason.

“Isn’t the Slayer moving to the Hellmouth there?“ Richard wasn’t the most well-connected (or well-liked) Watcher, but he usually managed to keep up with the most important news.

“Yes. There are p-portents and signs that indicate that her p-presence is needed there for the f-foreseeable f-future.” Rupert took off his glasses and polished them.

“That’s a bloody suicide mission!” Richard was appalled.

“That’s quite an honour!” Mary said at the same time.

While Richard and his wife glared at each other, Rupert coughed. “It is a somewhat dangerous posting, yes.”

“It’s an honour to be chosen as the Slayer’s mentor. To train and guide her, to help her fulfill her destiny… your name will be inscribed in our most sacred annals, Rupert!” Mary smiled at their colleague, though Richard knew she was jealous. His wife hadn’t been able to become a potential’s Watcher despite applying each time another of the poor girls was discovered. She claimed it was all her parents’ fault, who were still pushing for her to stop working, but Richard knew she blamed him for it as well. To think she had cautioned him about wanting to meet the Slayer, years ago!

“We’re talking about a Hellmouth here, Mary! A big magical rift that’s leaking evil energies, remember? The stuff that would be banned as illegal doping if there was a demon Olympics!” Couldn’t his wife see that they were talking to a dead Watcher walking?

“W-well, the Slayer in question managed to d-destroy Lothos, a very powerful m-master vampire so…” Rupert started to say, but of course, Mary wouldn’t let the poor man have any last words.

“Richard! Remember our oath? If the Slayer is needed on the Hellmouth, then that’s where her Watcher goes as well! The world may be at stake!” Richard’s wife huffed.

“I’m actually here to ask about…” Rupert still hadn’t realized that Mary wasn’t really listening, so Richard cut him off.

“That’s a very nice trick. I can barely see Travers’s hands move your lips, Mary!” He sneered at her.

“E-excuse me…”

“It’s always about Travers with you! Just because you hate the man doesn’t mean he’s wrong! You can’t win a war without necessary sacrifices!” Mary glared at him.

“M-may I…”

“I know that!” He glared right back at her. “Just because you suck up to the fossilized pillock doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing! If he’s talking about ‘necessary sacrifices’ any smart man should be running for the hills!”

“C-could I…”

“You’re paranoid! If Travers was abusing his power, why hasn’t he sent you to the Hellmouth?” Mary grit her teeth.

“P-please…”

“He probably couldn’t convince anyone of the other fossils that a Yankee Watcher for an American Slayer was a good idea.” Richard snarled.

“Mum, Dad! Don’t fight!” Alexis stood there, pouting and with tears gathering in her eyes.

“Sweetie! We’re not fighting. See? No blood!” Richard picked his daughter up and showed her his face. “We’re just discussing some adult things.”

Alexis nodded as sagely as a three year old could. “In adult voices.”

“Exactly!” He beamed at his smart daughter while Mary rolled her eyes.

His wife turned to Rupert. “I am terribly sorry you had to see that.” A glance towards Richard showed exactly who she blamed for their embarrassing display.

He would be the better man though, and wouldn’t continue their bickering. “Yes, indeed, sorry about that. I think you were about to tell us the reason for your visit though, before my wife interrupted you.”

Rupert stopped polishing his glasses and put them on again. “Ah, yes, that’s correct.” Taking a deep breath, he smiled a tad forcedly - no doubt he’d rather have faced a vampire by himself than witness the row between Richard and Mary. “I must confess that I was a bit surprised by my appointment, and, having no experience with the United States myself, I wanted to ask you about some advice to fit in.”

Richard opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at Mary, who was again glaring at him. “Ah… I am from New York. Where is the new Slayer from?”

“She was born and raised in Los Angeles. She’s moving to the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, a bit to the south.” Rupert stated.

Richard barely managed not to wince. A Slayer from Los Angeles. A Hellmouth in southern California. Rupert wouldn’t last six months before he lost his sanity or his life.

At least it wasn’t Texas.

*****

**New York, June 1999**

“How are you doing, dear? And don’t say fine. You’ve visited me more often this year than in all the years before.” Martha Rodgers said as she returned from the kitchen, two glasses of wine in her hands. She passed one to him before she sat down.

Richard glanced to the guest room. His mother smiled. “Don’t worry. Alexis is watching TV.”

“As a responsible father, I should be concerned about the effects our daytime TV has on her still developing brain,” Richard said.

“Stop stalling, kiddo! Tell me what’s going on!” For all that she displayed it very rarely, his mum still could make him feel like a child, on occasion.

He sighed leaning back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I think we’ll break up.” His mother didn’t say anything. He looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t seem to be surprised.”

“Richard, I saw that coming from miles away.” Martha Rodgers patted his hand.

“Funny. I do not recall you warning me before my wedding. Missing an opportunity like that seems rather uncharacteristic for you.“ If she also stated she was shunning alcohol now, he’d check for demonic possession.

“You both were young, in love, and Alexis was on the way. You could have made it work.” Martha sounded wistful as she smiled sadly at him.

“What went wrong then? What did I do wrong?” He was thirty years old, he shouldn’t be asking that, least of all of his mother. He couldn’t help it, though.

“You realized your dream and became a successful author. Mary stayed a librarian. I don’t know why such an intelligent woman stuck with a dead-end job, but she won’t be happy with her husband outshining her. That you kept working as a librarian - and I never understood why you’d do this, unless you really like to have sex at work - while writing bestsellers didn’t help, of course.”

They actually hadn’t had sex in the Watcher’s library, not more than a few times, at least, but what his mother said made perfect sense. Richard, rich and famous, Mary, missing field posting after field posting, unable to advance in the Council. And to think he had been happy that Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had been selected as the second Slayer’s Watcher - and hadn’t that been a surprise, the first rule of the Slayer, broken - instead of his wife! “Why didn’t I see it coming?” He covered his face with his hands.

“You didn’t want to see it. Love does that to people.”

He glanced at her. “Is that from a play?”

“Maybe.” She finished her glass and fetched the bottle. “Do you have a good lawyer?”

Did he? “No one I trust fully.” They were friends of the Wilkinsons. “I’ll find one though. I can’t lose Alexis.” His daughter was already far too responsible. If Mary kept custody, Alexis would become a copy of her mother.

“Just tell Mary that if she tries to keep Alexis, her parents will force her to become a housewife.” Martha sipped from her glass. “And don’t file for divorce in London. You’d lose half your money.”

He had forgotten just how vicious his mother could be when she wanted to be. “That would actually work.” It would be underhanded, making Mary think that if she got custody of Alexis, she’d never advance in the Council, but he had to think of what was best for his daughter. And living with a parent who went out hunting vampires by herself wasn’t it. He closed his eyes. “I am such a damn idiot!” And a hypocrite. But it was for Alexis. And he at least would stop hunting vampires. For her.

“Well, yes, you are.”

“Mother!”

“I am just agreeing with you.” She smiled innocently at him.

“I’ll quit my job in London and move to New York with Alexis.” They wouldn’t be sad to see ‘the Yankee go home’. He hadn’t any real friends left there. The revelation about his career as an author had ruffled a number of feathers as well. Damned fossils! Maybe he should change his name to his nom de plume, to show them.

“Good. I don’t know why you haven’t done this years ago already.” His mother shook her head. He’d explain it to her, all of it. But only once this divorce was over. If his own mother testified that he was delusional, he’d never get custody.

“Will you become a full-time writer then?”

“Yes. Gina should be happy about that.” His agent had never gotten along with Mary and had complained a lot whenever his job had interfered with planned promotion events for his latest book.

“Oh, Richard!” He didn’t understand why his mother sighed and looked at him as if he had said something stupid.

*****

**New York, July 1999**

“Alexis? I’ve got something important I need to ask you,” Richard Rodgers said.

His five year old daughter looked up from the book she was reading - or trying to read. “Yes, Dad?”

“If I and Mum split up, who’d you like to stay with?”

He shouldn’t ask like this. He shouldn’t put his daughter on the spot like this, shouldn’t force her to choose between her father and her mother. She was just five years old. She would be traumatized. But it was what this divorce would come down to. There wouldn’t be a shared custody. There wouldn’t be weekends with the other parent. Alexis’s parents would be living on different continents. And he had to know what his daughter wanted, before he filed for a divorce in New York.

“I’d rather stay with you, Dad,” Alexis said, as serious as a girl her age could be. She wasn’t crying, either, or not yet.

Richard had to fight not to smile or to cry, or to do both together. Instead he hugged his daughter.

“You need me, Mum doesn’t,” Alexis added, nodding sagely while she patted him on his back. He winced a bit at that statement - he wasn’t that bad, was he? “Does that mean you’ll be getting a divorce?”

He blinked, and pulled back, looking her into the eyes. “Where did you hear that word?” She was five years old!

“Gran explained it all to me.” Alexis nodded sagely again.

Richard turned his head to the living room. “Mother! What did you do?”

His mother appeared in the door. “Don’t shout, Richard. Someone had to explain things to Alexis, so she could make an informed decision about her future. And you obviously wouldn’t do it right.”

“She’s five years old, Mother!” He let go of his daughter and stood up, facing his mother.

“And generally more mature than you!” Martha Rodgers shot back.

“That’s rich, coming from you!” Richard was gathering steam.

“Don’t fight!” Alexis yelled, frowning at them.

Both Martha and Richard Rodgers fell silent. Richard stared at his daughter, standing there, looking both serious and terribly cute, and started to laugh. “To think that the most mature in this family is a five year old child…”

Of course, Martha would have to have the last word. “See, Alexis? Even he admits that you’re the responsible one in the family.”

Alexis nodded again, sighing, while Richard glared at his mother.

*****

**London, August 1999**

“Is this all?” Mary’s voice was cold enough to drop the temperature in the room by a few degrees, but Richard was almost certain she was secretly relieved. In hindsight, it was a surprise they hadn’t broken up sooner, given the amount of fights they had had with each other. It was mostly a matter of pride, he thought. And that it hadn’t been her idea. Though filing for divorce in New York probably hadn’t helped her temper. Richard didn’t care. She was not suing for custody of Alexis, and that was all that mattered. Well, that, and he still would be rich after the settlement. That was important too. If he ever married again, he’d certainly get a pre-nup though.

“Yes. Everything left belongs to you or the Council.” He handed her the keys to the flat. The apartment itself was part of the settlement, and was going to be hers.

“You’re quitting everything and everyone then.” Mary stared at him. She didn’t call him a coward, but he knew her opinion on his courage, or lack thereof.

“I am not quitting my family,” he shot back. She didn’t flinch. Not any more. “Alexis needs me. She needs a father she doesn’t have to worry about because he’s hunting monsters at night. Besides, the Council has things well in hand.” The Slayer had prevented an ascension a few months ago, and was still alive after almost three years on the hellmouth. Buffy Summers - and who in their right state of mind would name their daughter ‘Buffy’? - got results, even if she was a bit hard on her Watchers. After Rupert, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had been fired as well. Mary was probably hoping she’d get the position this time. He hoped she wouldn't - both Rupert and Wyndam-Pryce had stayed in California instead of returning to England, and he’d rather have an ocean and an international border between himself and Mary.

The two glared at each other until Richard nodded at her and left what had been his home for so many years. He wouldn’t dwell on the past though, or not too much. He had a future to look forward to. And he had to figure out how to get a flamethrower to New York.

*****

**New York, January 2000**

Richard Edgar Castle. The name of a rich, successful author. His name. Officially now.

“Are you playing with your new business cards again?” Martha Rodgers shook her head at him on the way to the kitchen in his new, expensive apartment. She was visiting often since he had moved back to New York.

He dumped the stack of cards in the drawer in his desk and yelled: “No, I am not!”

His mother appeared again, one of the canapes from last night’s party in her hand. “Though I have to hand it to you - for a clean break, a name change works wonders. Now if only Mary wouldn’t know your new address…”

“She’ll hardly show up here, mother. She’s quite happy in Merry Old England.”

“I am not sure Mary will ever be happy.” Martha sat down on the seat in his office, and studied the various melee weapons hanging on the wall. “Did you actually split those things between the two of you?”

“Each of us kept their own weapons.” Those on the wall were harmless props. His actual weapons were hidden in a concealed safe, or secured so no six year old, or older, kid, not even a very bright one, could get to them.

Martha shook her head. “To think that both of you are crazy for medieval reenacting. Or were - she stopped attending conventions with you years ago, didn’t she?”

“She did yes. But she still is quite fond of her weapons.” That should have been a first sign things were not going well, he thought. They had had such fun, dressing up.

“A very weird hobby, even for a British woman,” Martha said, though she was looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“Her parents have a collection.”

“And so do you, now.”

“I do research for my books, Mother. ‘Vampire Hunter’ is a successful series because I take care to get the details right.” At least among the fans of medieval weaponry.

“Such as the sizes of your heroines?” Martha finished her canape. “Just remember to use Gina as a model for the next vampire villainess. She’d never fit the hero role.”

“Mother!”

“I am serious, Richard. Mary turned out to be a bad fit, but Gina’s a gold digger.” Martha shook her head at him. “Which you’d realize if you were thinking with your head.”

“She’s a very competent agent, not a gold digger.” And she was very attractive too, and she admired his talent as a writer.

“Kiddo, all agents are gold diggers. Both want to screw you and take your money.” Martha Rodgers shook her head.

“You make her sound like a whore.” His mother hadn’t liked any of his girlfriends, as far as he could remember. Maybe Anne Bartlet, but that had been in pre-school.

“She manages to do that just fine by herself. A pushy one at that.” Martha sniffed.

“Was there something else you wanted to talk about, mother? Or did you just come by to raid my fridge and berate my life choices?” Richard asked while starting up his computer.

“Alexis told me you carry a ‘lucky stake’ around, to ‘fend off vampires’. She also lectured me to never invite anyone into my or your apartment, since ‘vampires cannot enter uninvited’. And she always wears a cross.” Martha leaned forward. “I know I raised you better than to believe in superstition.”

“Yes, you did.” He should have had this talk long ago, Richard knew. But there never was a harmless chained up vampire around when he needed one.

“Alexis is sensible and mature for her age, but she believes in that… stuff. She takes it very seriously. And she said Mary taught her the same rules.”

“Yes. Very thoroughly, too. With quizzes even.” He tried to make light of it - and failed.

“Richard, it’s one thing for a successful author of vampire books to carry a stake and a cross around with him. Eccentric, ironic, an ice breaker at a party - though your bank account balance works much better for that now that you’re rich. But for him to indoctrinate his daughter is another thing.”

“Did you ever wonder why I only wear shirts with a collar?” he asked and started to unbutton his dress shirt. To his surprise, Martha remained silent until he pulled the shirt off and the undershirt back. She hissed at the sight of the scar on his neck. “I was bitten by such ‘superstition’, Mother. Without Mary I would have died.”

She was eyeing the weapons on the wall with a different expression now. And him as well. He sighed. She wouldn't believe him without actual proof. Hopefully, that coroner contact of the Council hadn’t heard of him quitting, and had a potential fledgling on ice, ready to be staked. He’d rather not chance visiting a demon bar, if he could find one. With or without his mother.

*****

**New York, January 2000**

Richard Castle had met a number of eccentric people in Britain. People who spent their lives, sometimes literally, fighting vampires and other demons tended to acquire some quirks. And worse. Sidney Perlmutter, the medical examiner in charge of the morgue with a possible fledgling, would have fit right in with them.

At least Richard hadn’t ever met a guy who ate his take-out dinner next to a corpse while pointing out the intricacies of the straps that ‘would stand up to a bloodsucker’s strength’. No wonder the man was a contact of the Council. At least his mother wouldn’t flirt with the doctor, not after seeing him use a scalpel to open the container with his food, and then to use the same tool to demonstrate that the corpse was truly dead while lecturing her and Richard about the telltale signs of ‘proto-vampires’.

That had actually been quite informative. He could use some of the information for a book, should ‘Vampire Hunter’ ever reach the 20th century. Richard pulled out his notebook and wrote a few lines down while his mother’s polite smile grew more forced each minute she was listening to the coroner. It had taken a lot to get her to come, and if she stormed away now it’ll all be for nothing. Worse, she would believe he was delusional.

“So, when will the bloodsucker rise?”

“Hard to say. It’s not that predictable, but within the hour, if my estimate of its time of death is correct.” Perlmutter’s tone made it clear that this was the case, and that questioning him would not be a good idea.

Richard nodded. “How many such cases do you get, by the way?”

“Not too many. The population still hasn’t recovered from the time Nikki Wood cleaned the city up.” Perlmutter answered, his face briefly showing a wistful expression when he mentioned that Slayer. “The number’s slowly rising though.”

A coroner and the Slayer, working together? That would make for a nice novel, with a Quincy vibe. Still quite different from his usual books though. And he had a feeling that if Perlmutter recognized himself in a fictive character, it would lead to trouble. “Well, no worse than London, yet.”

“Ah. What’s your preferred method of disposal?” The doctor finished his meal and threw the box into the next trashcan. For a moment Richard wondered if he disposed of body parts in the same way.

“Stake if they are tied down. But if not… fire.” He grinned. Next to him, Martha rolled her eyes. She obviously hadn’t forgotten or forgiven the time he had set their garden table ablaze. Even if it had been an accident, mostly.

“That can be messy. And dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as trying to stake them in melee.” He had become quite skilled with the flamethrower.

“It can lead to attention from the police though. Arson charges are a thing.”

“Well…” Before Richard could explain that he had been careful, Martha’s shocked scream - dear Lord, she should really audition for a Slasher movie! - interrupted the two men. The vampire had risen, or tried to.

Snarling, his ridges and demonic eyes fully visible, it struggled against the straps holding it down. Richard was pulling out a stake while Perlmutter noted down the time, and a few other observations. “See, Mother, that’s a vampire with its demonic face visible. They show that when feeding, otherwise they look like normal humans.”

“Look how the cuts I made before it woke up have disappeared,” Perlmutter threw in. Martha gaped at him, then at the demon again.

Richard shouldn’t be enjoying this so much, but to show his mother she had been wrong about him? This was almost as good as when he told her about his book contract! “But check this, Mother: It has no reflection. That’s why I have so many mirrors, and one directly opposite our door. If someone doesn’t show up in the mirror, do not open the door, ever!” He held out a small mirror to demonstrate.

Martha’s mouth was moving, but she wasn’t saying anything. Maybe he was overdoing it? “To kill them, a wooden stake to the heart works well.” The vampire was screaming and cursing a bit too much now. A moment later, he turned to ashes. “Mother?” Oh, yes, he had overdone it. But he couldn’t think of a way to show her that would have been less shocking.

Perlmutter was commenting on the way the clothes - if the scrubs on it counted as clothes - had disappeared as well while Richard gently guided his mother out of the morgue. He just knew this would be costing him a small fortune to make it up, even though it was all her fault for not believing him without proof!

*****

**New York, January 2001**

“I know it’s customary to dislike your daughter-in-law or step-mom, but aren’t you jumping the gun here? Gina hasn’t even mentioned marriage so far!” Richard Castle - ‘Rick’ for his friends - said exasperatedly. It wasn’t often that both his mother and his daughter agreed upon something, but in this case, the two were of one opinion: Gina Cowell was not the right woman for Richard Castle!

“We’re being pro-active,” his smart, precocious and protective daughter declared, taking care to pronounce the obviously recently learned word correctly. Rick shot a glance at his mother, who feigned confusion. “If we get rid of her now we’ll not have to commit a crime later!”

While he was gaping at the little girl who was supposed to be innocent, his mother cut in: “You’re very rich and very prominent now, Richard. Women want a piece of that, and usually not the one you’d like to share.”

“Mother!” He made a face and pointed at Alexis.

“Pish posh! She’s your agent, she already gets more than her fair share of your money. That she is trying to marry you just proves that she’s too greedy. Even for an agent.” Martha Rodgers ranked agents several steps below lawyers. Alexis showed her agreement with this statement by nodding several times.

“Did you two ever think that Gina might have honestly fallen in love with me because of my charm, wit, and handsome face?” He had his hands on his hips as he glared at them.

“No,” Alexis flatly answered and shook her head emphatically.

“I do not think she knows what love is unless it’s related to money.” Martha stated.

Rick sighed. “Look, you are being very, very biased. Can’t you give her a chance, for my sake? She may be an agent, but she’s got a number of good sides to compensate.” Like her body.

“Well… with her around we’d be safer,” his mother said after a short pause.

“Exactly! We… wait, what?

“She obviously sold her soul to the devil already, so vampires and other demons will stay away from her,” Martha said in a deadpan voice, before breaking out in giggles with Alexis.

“Very funny.” Richard glared at them, but as usual, it didn’t impress either of the two. Martha was immune to it, and Alexis only caved when she thought she had been bad - and she was such a good girl, when she actually did something bad for a change, she punished herself so much, Rick usually never needed to scold her. He groaned. “If she’s really after my money, then two words will scare her away: Prenuptial Agreement.”

“That’s why I think you’ll one day wake up in Vegas, married to her, and with the prenup unsigned since you’ll be so drunk, you won’t even remember the night. Did she ever mention how nice Nevada is in the winter, spring, fall or summer?”

“No she didn’t!” Gina had mentioned California, but Rick didn’t really want to get close to the Hellmouth. The things he had heard… even though he would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Slayer had told Travers off!

“Smart of her. She’ll present it as a spontaneous idea, something wild, like a teenager would do, and you’ll fall for it hook, line and sinker!” Martha wasn’t about to change her opinion of Rick’s girlfriend.

Alexis kept nodding, then frowned. “What does that mean, Gran?”

While Alexis learned about fishing, Richard went and fixed himself a drink. He and Gina would show them! They could be happy together without marrying, or mentioning money!

*****

**New York, June 2001**

“Told you so,” Martha Rodgers commented, without looking at him, her gaze locked on the newspaper announcing the break-up of ‘Rick Castle and his agent’.

“Mh.” Alexis was holding her orange juice with both hands.

Rick Castle walked to his new and expensive Italian coffee maker while glaring at them both.  “Yes, you were right. And? Am I supposed to run every girl I am interested in first by you two, so you can judge her?”

“Yes!”

“Of course, dear. Not that you’d ever do much of what you’re supposed to.”

Rick groaned while his coffee slowly dripped into his mug. He just couldn’t win.

*****

**New York, November 2002**

Gina had fought tooth and nail to get as much money as possible from him during the divorce. At the same time, she had done all she could to make more money for him -  she got a cut from that anyway, after all. Richard Castle had to admit that his second ex-wife was a professional when it came to money.

He rubbed his chin. That would make for a good remark for the press: ‘I have the utmost trust that our relationship will only improve now that it is strictly professional again. My ex-wife always was better with my money than with me.’ At least he had had the presence of mind to get a prenup that did stand up, mostly, in court. Oh, another one: ‘If I had spent every evening with a professional, it would have cost me less.’

“... explosion shook the heart of London. Authorities are still investigating. So far no one has claimed responsibility, though both islamist terror groups as well as the IRA are under suspicion…” He whipped his head around and stared at the TV running in the living room. What the…

“Dad! I am old enough to watch the news! It’s educational” Alexis claimed while holding the remote to her chest. Rick shook his head. “Switch to BBC.”

Alexis stopped trying to defend her right to watch news of terror bombings in the morning and did as told. He stared at the screen showing the smoking ruins of an old building in London. A very familiar building.

“Dear Lord!” He hadn’t cursed like an English in years. “That was the Council’s headquarters. I worked there for years with your mother!”

Alexis gaped at him, and he realized his mistake at once. “You mean Mum was in that house?” she asked in a trembling voice.

He wanted to hug his daughter, hold her, and assure her everything would be OK. Instead he was dialing. Mary’s apartment - no answer. Mary’s cellphone - no answer. Mary’s office - no answer. That was no surprise. It was currently burning and buried under rubble. Her parents… no answer. He dialed the numbers again and again, every time getting the same result, until Alexis started to cry.

He hugged and held his daughter then.

*****

A day later, things had not improved. His TV had been running constantly. He had bought all British newspapers he could. Even the tabloids. There was no news about survivors, and the families of the dead were not giving interviews. Rick had called all his old contacts in England. Most of them he hadn’t been able to reach. He wished he had stayed in touch with the Council, hadn’t limited his contact with Mary - he didn’t know enough people to ask about his ex-wife. At least she hadn’t been found dead in the rubble, like so many others. So, there was still a bit of hope that Alexis hadn’t lost her mother.

A cynical part of him wanted to claim that she had lost her mother years ago. But it would not do to speak ill of the probably dead. No one had taken responsibility for the attack yet. The press had started their own investigations, and the tabloids were already speculating about secret services and conspiracies.

Not too far off the mark, to be honest. He had reached a few survivors, but they hadn’t been able to find Mary, or confirm her death either. They had warned him though - the Council headquarters blowing up hadn’t been the only attack, just the most public one. And Mary’s parents had died in the blast, as well as Travers himself.

Rick glanced at the painting hiding his weapons locker. His apartment was pretty secure when it came to attacks by demons. Reinforced doors, panic rooms, he had even hired a wiccan to cast protective spells on it - his mother had complained about the smell of incense for days, and she didn’t even live here. He had gone to great length to protect his family. But against enemies using bombs? What could he do against that kind of threat?

He had a Glock Model 20 in his desk. He didn’t have a concealed carry permit, but as long as he stayed in his home, he could carry as many weapons as he could, well, physically carry. But shooting a bomb wouldn’t help, and Alexis would be frightened if she saw him carrying a pistol instead of a sword.

Alexis… she wasn’t coping well. Not that anyone would expect her to, seeing as she was just eight years old. Or ‘almost nine’, as she had started to claim right after her birthday. He sighed.  Alexis was usually very mature for her age, but this would be too much for anyone.

The doorbell interrupted his thoughts. Who could it be? His mother was in the guest room. She had stayed up too late last night, after having rushed back from her vacation in Florida with her latest lover. Alexis was already in bed, hopefully sleeping. After a second of hesitation, he picked up the Glock and walked to the door. If the gun wouldn’t work there was a broadsword mounted next to to the doorframe.

Rick looked through the spyhole and froze. Mary? She did show up in the mirror across the door. He opened the door a gap, as far as the far more solid than usual security chain allowed. “How did we meet for the first time?” he stated, instead of a greeting. He was sweating a bit, and gripped the Glock harder.

His ex-wife had been about to say something, and froze for a second, her mouth half-open. She recovered quickly though. “I saved you from a skanky vampire that had picked you up in a pub in London and wanted to eat you in a dark alley.” The Council didn’t know that. Hadn’t known that. Almost no one outside their closest family knew that.

He nodded, then unlocked the chain and opened the door. Mary stepped inside, nodding approvingly when she spotted the gun in his hand. “You heard, then.”

“Yes. My condolences.”

His ex-wife nodded, her eyes barely showing any emotion. He locked the door, then held out his hand to her. She shrugged out of her coat, revealing an outfit she usually had worn on their hunts together. It looked slightly rumpled, like her hairstyle.

“Alexis!” he shouted. “Wake up! Your mum’s here!”

Mary jerked, staring first at him, then at the stairs leading up to her daughter’s room. The door upstairs was thrown open, and Alexis Castle came rushing out. “Mum? Mum?” She stopped at the top of the stairs, staring down. “MUM!”

Mary barely had time to open her arms, still just starting to smile, when the almost nine years old latched on to the woman and wailed.

*****

“You want us to move to the Hellmouth?” Rick stared at his first ex-wife. He would have shouted, if that wouldn’t have woken up Alexis, who had finally fallen asleep.

“Yes. The Slayer needs all the help the Council can provide. She’s facing the First Evil, who is trying to destroy the Watchers and the Slayer Line. The Hellmouth is the key to its plan, as far as we know,” Mary said.

“I’m not a member of the Watcher’s Council any more. Haven’t been one for years,” Rick retorted.

“The First won’t care. Its servants have struck all around the world. Watchers, potentials, contacts - far too many have died, alone, overwhelmed. More still are in danger. Our best chance is to join the Slayer. She has beaten a hellgod and prevented more apocalypses than any other Slayer in history. If anyone can beat the First, it’s Buffy Summers!” Mary sounded quite fanatical for someone who had had a low opinion of the ‘Yankee Slayer’ a few years ago.

“She did all that without much help from the Council.” More like, despite the interfering from the Council, in his opinion. Rick wasn’t about to leave his family. It wasn’t as if the Slayer would need help from an author and retired vampire hunter.

“She wasn’t facing the First Evil then. She does now. This is the most dangerous enemy the Council has ever faced. We need everyone, or we’ll fall, and the world will be doomed. No one will be safe. Nowhere will be safe.” Mary glanced at the door to Alexis’ room.

He grinded his teeth in anger. “Don’t bring her into this! She cried for two days, thinking you were dead, and now you want both of us to leave her?”

“Do you want to protect her, or not? You are a Watcher. The First will come for you.” Mary didn’t say that he was endangering their daughter by his very presence. She didn’t have to.

“I am retired!” He was no Watcher. Not any more!

“Do you really think the First Evil cares about you formally quitting the Council? A number of retired Watchers were killed already!”

Martha Rodgers had been surprisingly silent during the exchange so far. She was on her second glass of wine now though, and looked grim.

Rick started to pace.

“Are you so selfish to endanger our daughter instead of doing what’s right?” Mary went on.

“Shut up!”

She ignored his outburst. “Why do you think the First has gone after the Council? It’s because we are a threat. With so many dead, everyone is needed, or it’ll win. Even ‘that damned Yankee’.”

“I can’t leave Alexis!” He had to protect his daughter. Keep her safe.

“You have to. You’re not safe to be around.”

Rick snarled at her and went to get a drink from the kitchen, forcing himself to calm down. He’d never forgive himself if Alexis was hurt because of him. His mother was still not saying anything.

What should he do? What could he do?

Alexis. He had to do what was best for her. His daughter.

“Damn you, Mary!”

*****

**Sunnydale, December 2002**

Richard Castle - Rick to his friends - hadn’t expected the Hellmouth to look so… normal. Suburban. There was no gothic architecture looming over narrow alleys, no ubiquitous shadows and mists hiding monsters, no general atmosphere of danger and violence. Instead, Sunnydale looked like the stereotypical Californian town. Sunny, open, filled with tanned, health-conscious people. Buffy Summers had to be a miracle worker to keep the hellmouth in check so it didn’t corrupt the town.

Well, there were less people on the streets than he’d expected for that time of the day - but then, this was California, not New York. Everyone knew Californians were different.

“What’s the address again?” Rick asked while stopping to let a hot jogger cross the street.

“1630 Revello Drive. Take the next turn left,” Mary answered, splitting her attention between the map on her knees and the town.

Rick nodded, not bothering to answer verbally. After two days on the road filled with planning, ranting, and arguing, both had spent the rest of the drive in silence, even when they stopped to eat, or to shower and rest a few hours in a motel. He had wanted to fly - charter a private jet, even - but with both of them hunted by the First, and with Mary connected to the London bombing, they wouldn't have gotten far at any airport. And the Ack Pack currently resting in the trunk would have led to awkward questions from any authority.

He checked his appearance in the rear view mirror, ignoring the frown on his ex-wife’s face. He had a reputation as a ruggedly handsome, rich playboy to maintain. It wouldn’t do to arrive too rumpled. At least he had been able to shower and shave that morning, though a bit of stubble might have made him look more like the experienced vampire hunter (retired) he was.

He drove the M3 Coupé into the driveway of the house and cut the engine. For the residence of the Slayer, it looked deceptively harmless. No high fence around the area, and the walls looked rather flimsy. Once outside his air conditioned car, he smelled the air. Quite clear, compared to the almost-smog of London, or New York. His stylish leather jacket with the hidden loops and sheaths for stakes and blades and vials of holy water was more appropriate for London’s fog than California’s sun, but in December, it would fit either. Mary, of course, wore her long coat and sour expression as if she had just returned from another boring Council meeting.

He pushed the doorbell, then waited. After half a minute, the curtain behind the window on the left side moved, and he could see part of a face peering out. Then the door opened, and Rick came face to face with Buffy Summers. Lothos, the Master, Darla, Angelus, Kakistos, Spike, Dracula himself - she had faced the most powerful vampires and had defeated them all. She was a legend. She was an inspiration to every vampire hunter. She was… about five feet tall, and thin like a fashion model.

“Buffy Summers?” He couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his voice. Good things came in small packages, but that small?

“Who are you?” The girl narrowed her eyes, and he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Her right side and arm were hidden behind the half-opened door. No doubt she held a weapon there, ready to kill him in a split second.

He quickly put on his best, most charming smile. “I am Richard Castle, Watcher. This is Mary Wilkinson, also a Watcher. We’re here to help.” He hoped Mary managed to smile instead of frown.

The blonde didn’t move, didn’t look away, she simply yelled “GILES! We’ve got visitors!”

Wait, Giles? Rupert ‘Ripper’ Giles? He was still alive?

“Buffy, there was no need to yell, I was already on the way… dear Lord! Richard! Mary! You’re alive!” Rupert arrived behind the Slayer, adjusting his glasses. There was more grey in his hair, he had more lines in his face, but otherwise he could have stepped out of the Council library ten years ago. Behind him, a gaggle of girls was hanging back.

“You know them, Giles?” The Slayer was still giving them looks full of suspicion.

“Yes, Buffy. They were colleagues of mine, back in London.” Rupert smiled at the girl, probably as he’d smile at any dangerous predator, Rick thought.

“Great. We’re invaded by the English. Soon Starbucks will go out of business, replaced by teabucks. And where will I get my coffee-fix then?” Buffy pouted, but stepped back and opened the door all the way. As expected, she had a stake in hand, a rather warped thing, too.

“I am actually American,” Rick corrected her as he stepped inside following Mary, “I just spent a decade in London.”

“You don’t sound American. Oh my god, English is contagious!” Buffy gasped. Had Rick really slipped back into the accent he had picked up in his years in England?

Rupert’s smile grew forced. “We could only wish English was contagious. You might stop mangling our language if that was the case.” The Watcher and the Slayer stared at each other for a second before the girl pouted and closed the door.

“Please excuse Buffy,” one of the other girls smiled at Rick, “my sister is ... oh my god! You’re Richard Castle!”

“Yes, Dawn, he said that.” Buffy glared at the girl.

“He’s a famous author!” Dawn, as the girl was apparently called, stared at Rick with an expression of awe he’d have loved if she was, say, 10 years older, and not the Slayer’s sister. “Willow! Castle is in our house!” She had a set of lungs like her sister too.

Rupert looked confused, Mary looked annoyed, and the Slayer looked lost. As first impressions went, this was one of Rick’s better ones.

*****

“I’ve actually been a Watcher for about ten years. I quit the Council in 2000 and became a full-time author and father,” Richard explained a bit later while sitting in the Slayer’s living room. Which looked far too normal, in his opinion. If he ever wrote a book about this, he’d have to change things. Maybe add some weird hunting trophies and weapons to the walls. Older furniture, sturdier. More chests. He’d keep the Californian fashion worn by the girls though. At least the amount of skin it showed.

Rupert was polishing his glasses. He hadn’t taken the revelation that Rick had made a fortune by using the Watcher journals as inspiration that well. The girls, especially that redhead and the Slayer’s sister, were very impressed though. And the young man, Xander, seemed to be very amused. Probably at Rupert’s expense.

“Wow. That explains why the ‘Vampire Hunter’ series is so good. I should have noticed that the descriptions of the vampires and demons were completely correct! But… does that mean that those past Watchers all had affairs with their Slayers? I mean, in every book, there’s this love story as well, very romantic, even if it’s a tad biased since there’s no lesbian couples, but then again, there was that story with the female Watcher, but since we know that most Slayers die so young, that makes all those love stories very tragic in hindsight. Oh my god, I will have to reevaluate my whole opinion of those books!” The redhead babbled, then stared at Buffy and Giles.

“What?” the Slayer looked again confused, then her eyes widened. “No way! Me and Giles? Eww! He slept with Mom! On the hood of a police patrol car! With handcuffs!”

“Giles! Oh my god!” Dawn looked shocked.

“G-Man! Way to go!” Xander exclaimed, then cringed when the Slayer and her sister glared at him.

“Buffy! I explained to you that both of us were under the influence of a mind-altering substance in those chocolates! I certainly would have never done anything like this otherwise!” Rupert huffed at the Slayer, then glared at the kids staring at him.

“Does that mean Mom wasn’t good enough for you without doing drugs?” Buffy scowled at the Watcher.

“What? I most certainly didn’t mean that! Joyce was one of the most impressive women I knew.”

“You can be my step-dad anytime,” Dawn Summers cut in. “At least you’re around most of the time, unlike our real dad.” She perked up. “I’d need a bigger allowance, of course!” When the older man glared at her, she giggled.

Rick glanced at Mary while Rupert tried to defend his reputation. His ex-wife looked shocked, well, it was understandable. Rick was a bit shocked himself.

This was humanity’s best hope for survival? The world was doomed!

*****

After things had calmed down, the talk returned to what might pass for a strategy session if one was a Californian teenager. Rick wondered if what he was feeling now was how Travers had felt when talking with him. And he wondered how Rupert was still sane - the man had spent years here, and he had been born British!

“So… if I got this right, you’re an author who moonlighted as a Watcher librarian. And your ex-wife is a Watcher librarian.” Buffy Summers was pacing in front of the couch Rick and Mary were sitting on, while the rest of the house’s occupants were sprawled around the living room, mostly on the floor. “We already have an ex-Watcher ex-librarian.” She pointed at Rupert, who coughed. “What exactly can you do, other than writing books about old men seducing poor young Slayers?” More coughing from Rupert followed. “I doubt we can beat the First by feeding her novels. That might have worked with Glory, though.”

“Well, it’s not as if we are only librarians,” Rick answered, before Mary’s indignation could overcome her shock and his ex-wife could start a confrontation with the Slayer who had sent Travers packing. “Both of us regularly hunted vampires in our spare time in London.”

“Dear Lord!” Rupert sounded surprised - he really didn’t know Mary well - but the rest looked impressed.

“We left our weapons in the car. People tend to get nervous when they see a flamethrower.” Rick’s remark caused an instant change in the Slayer’s attitude.

“You’ve got a flamethrower? Can I see it?” For a feared veteran Slayer, Buffy’s puppy dog eyes were remarkably effective. Of course, knowing that she could rip him limb from limb if she wanted to helped her persuasiveness a lot.

“Of course. We can buy one for you too, if you want. That’s the other thing I bring to the table, apart from my ruggedly handsome looks and my experience: I’m rich. Money can solve a lot of problems.”

The expression on the Slayer’s face suddenly changed and Rich felt as if he was a piece of meat in front of a hungry tiger. And not the in the good, kinky sense. Next to him, Mary was covering her face, across from him Rupert was polishing his glasses, and everyone else was smiling far too eagerly at him.

Maybe his mother was right, and Rick really didn’t learn from his mistakes.

*****

**Sunnydale, December 2002**

Richard Castle was rich. Still. Financing the fight against the First Evil hadn’t really dented his fortune, yet. Despite Buffy Summers and her friends making a very determined effort to achieve that feat. And in less than a week too. Maybe the reason that the Slayer usually worked alone was that the Council would have gone bankrupt otherwise.

Sitting in the kitchen and waiting for the water to boil - he really needed to order a coffee maker too, Italian design of course - the author mentally ticked off the recent expenses. Rented a new, far larger and far more defensible, house. Villa, actually. He couldn’t fault that - he’d rather not share a room with Rupert and Xander again, and they needed more bathrooms with that many girls in one place. A lot more bathrooms. And solid concrete walls were far better than that flimsy wood they used in California. Not to mention safer if one used a flamethrower as a weapon.

“Yes!” A yell from the backyard interrupted his tallying. The Slayer was practising with her new flamethrower. Another necessary expense - she had laid claim to his old one, holding it hostage until he bought one for her as well. And a few spares. And enough spare fuel to keep the US Army running for a week.

“And it burns, burns, burns!” Xander mangled Johnny Cash while instructing Buffy. At least the targets they were using had been cheap - the young man had made them himself from a few planks of wood, down to the painted-on fangs and slick black or blonde hair, which annoyed Buffy for some reason.

The water finally boiled, and Rick filled his mug. A sip later he winced. He really needed to order that coffee maker. Stepping outside, he saw that Buffy had switched to sword practise with Rupert, and Xander was now instructing the potentials in how to use a flamethrower in the midst of the burned remains of Buffy’s targets.

“That’s far too dangerous. One mistake and they could set themselves on fire.” Mary had joined him on the porch, holding a cup of tea, no coffee for her of course, and glared at him.

Rick shrugged. “One mistake on a hunt, and you’re vampire chow.”

“It slows them down.”

“Even as potentials, they can’t keep up with the speed of vampires. Not on a Hellmouth. It gives them a range advantage, and even a glancing hit will kill a blood sucker,” Rick answered, almost bored. They had gone over that same argument twice already. “Besides, Xander knows how to use one.” And setting things on fire was cool.

Mary scowled, but didn’t continue the doomed argument. When a Slayer who had survived for six years on a Hellmouth wanted a weapon, she got that weapon.

The two watched the training in silence for a bit, emptying their mugs. Rick hoped Mary’s tea was as bad as his coffee. Unfortunately, with Rupert here, that was not likely.

“Mr. Castle?”

Richard winced. He pasted a smile on his face and turned around. “Yes, Anya?” The scandinavian friend of the Slayer, was attractive, but so greedy, she made Gina look like a nun sworn to live in poverty. She also was so rude at times, he suspected a mild mental disorder. That, or she had been raised by capitalist wolves in the wood, and had just recently returned to civilization. Now that gave him an idea for a new character...

“Have you considered my offer now?” She beamed a smile at him that was likely supposed to be seductive, but  made her look slightly crazy.

“I think we should focus on fighting the First Evil for now, before discussing business opportunities.” He smiled as honestly as when he had been talking to Gina’s lawyer. Anya didn’t seem to notice though. “Besides, if we lose this battle, there might not be a world left to make money in.”

Anya nodded. “That is true. Would you like to have sex? In our situation, it is a quite natural desire. Many warriors had sex before battle.”

What? He stared at her. He had known scandinavian women were supposed to be very… liberated… but this was…

“Those little girls want to have sex with Xander too,” she pointed at the potentials surrounding the young man. “All but the one who wants to have sex with Willow.” In the kitchen, Rick could hear a cup crash to the floor, and someone sputter.

“Anya! What did we tell you about sex talk?” Rick hadn’t noticed Buffy coming over to them - she simply suddenly was there, next to him.

“Those are not strangers, or visitors. We now live with them, so sex talk is appropriate,” Anya answered, frowning at the Slayer.

Buffy turned to Rick and Mary. “I am sorry, she’s a bit… blunt.” And the Empire State Building was a bit tall.

“We’re all a bit stressed,” Rick answered. He was tempted to accept the offer - sex with slightly crazy people was great - but he was not certain that the relationship between Anya and Xander was really over. Why else would the man have tried to frighten him with tales of Anya castrating and otherwise maiming men? Not that he believed those tales, but seeing a possibly jealous ex-boyfriend demonstrate how to set a human-sized target on fire tended to put things into a certain perspective. “I’ll have to go over a few numbers now.”

“Oh, I can help you! I am good with numbers. I ran the numbers for the Magic Box for Giles, and made a healthy profit!”

Rick’s smile froze on his face.

*****

“So, Xander, where did you learn how to use a flamethrower? I’ve been using one for years, and even I learned something new today,” Rick asked at dinner later that day, after a rather interesting afternoon. In the Chinese sense of the word.

“It’s a long story,” Xander began.

“He dressed as a soldier for Halloween, and due to a chaos spell he got the memories of that soldier,” Buffy interrupted him.

“Apparently not that long.” Xander pouted.

Rick wasn’t entirely certain he believed that. Maybe the young man was a deserter from the US Army. Or a Green Beret working undercover. He had overheard some hints at a covert operation in Sunnydale yesterday. But he was a guest here, even if his money paid the rent and groceries and most of the clothes. He changed the topic. “Did the prisoner talk?” And hadn’t that been a surprise! The group was keeping a prisoner - an evil warlock, if his boasts were true.

“We made him talk!” Dawn piped up.

Next to her, Anya nodded. “He was more than willing to share what he knew after I told him what I would do to him if he did not cooperate. Even if I had to improvise most of the tools. Torture standards have really declined in the last thousand years.”

Rick blinked, trying to make sense of that statement, but before he could ask what exactly she meant by that, Buffy interrupted him again. “We found out there’s a seal in the school basement, over the Hellmouth, that he has been trying to open. We need to seal that seal. Or re-seal the seal. Whatever, it needs to be locked up. Down. Closed.”

“Normally we would simply have walked in during the day and poured cement over it, but the new Principal is not quite as stupid as the ones we had in school,” Xander explained. “So we’ll have to do it tonight.”

“So that was what the cement was for.” Rick nodded.

“That, and I have a few ideas to enhance the defenses here.” Xander smiled.

“Xander - he can build an entire house, given enough materials and time!” Willow smiled at the man, prompting frowns from both the potential, Kennedy, and Anya.

“We’ll also have to find and rescue Spike.” At that statement from Buffy, the whole table fell silent.

Rick was puzzled. “Spike?”

“One of the members of the Scourge of Europe. He switched sides and was working with the Slayer the last few years,” Mary explained, without looking at him.

“So, it’s called ‘working’ now…” Xander said in a rather sarcastic tone, then yelped, and bent down, probably to rub his foot, while glaring at Buffy. Willow frowned at him while Rupert polished his glasses, but with a dark expression. Dawn was giggling. The potentials looked as lost as Rick felt.

“I feel I am missing something. One of the worst master vampires is working with the Slayer?” Rick gaped. “Why wasn’t I told that?” The stories he could spin from that...

“It’s a long story.” Buffy stated.

“Spike got a chip…” Anya started.

Buffy interrupted her. “I said it’s a long story. Too long to be told now. We’ve got a seal to seal. Willow has a locator spell to cast, and we’ve got a … Spike to save.”

“And there are more potentials coming. I’ve set up a switch that redirects calls to Buffy’s house to our new address.” Willow added.

“The seal and the girls are obviously the priority. We don’t even know where fangface is.” Xander said. “We’ll have to patrol the bus stop.”

“I’d like to go help with the seal,” Rick spoke up. He wouldn’t call it sealing the seal. He was an author! “I’ve never seen the Hellmouth, and that may be as close as I can get to it.”

“Oh, I doubt you’ll be that lucky. You’ll probably get grabbed by the tentacles sprouting from it, and dragged towards it.” Xander answered.

Rick was about to laugh at the joke when he noticed that everyone else was nodding with a grim expression.

Just what had been going on in that town?

*****

 


	3. Welcome to the Hellmouth

**Sunnydale, December 2002**

After all he had heard about the Hellmouth, seeing it or rather the Seal of Danzalthar on top of it, with his own eyes was a bit of a let down, in Richard Castle’s opinion. It was a pentagram, with runes mixed in, around a sabbatic goat head, all etched in metal. It looked like a cheap cover for a Metal band, actually. Rick wasn’t certain what that said about either Ancient Evil or Heavy Metal. “I’m not certain if I should be glad or disappointed that there’s no rift and no tentacles.”

“Glad,” Anya stated with obvious conviction.

“Definitely glad,” Dawn chimed in.

Mary just glared at him. He had expected that. Although after meeting the legendary Buffy Summers and her faithful allies, he could now safely say that Mary was far too serious to seriously fight the Forces of Darkness. It apparently took a certain kind of madness to survive for years on top of a Hellmouth. Rick would have suspected that the madness was the result of those years spent fighting demons, but Rupert had assured him that everyone involved had been crazy before he met them and they started hunting vampires.

“Since we do not know if Andrew would qualify as a virgin sacrifice to appease the demons coming through an open Hellmouth, I cast my vote for ‘glad’ as well,” Xander said from behind the bag of cement he was carrying.

“Hey!” their prisoner protested, then fell silent when everyone glared at him.

“A virgin sacrifice would probably break the seal, so we would want to avoid that,” Mary said in the crisp, calm voice Rick knew heralded an angry outburst. He still took care to stare at Andrew, then at the seal, rubbing his chin, until the murderous little jerk paled and trembled.

Buffy arrived, carrying two bags of cement and her flamethrower as if they weighed nothing. Such sights drove home just how powerful a Slayer was. And the lack of reaction from everyone but himself and Mary showed just how much the group here had gone through. “If I break a nail carrying those, someone better pay for my manicure!” she exclaimed while dropping the bags on the floor.

“Buffy! Just because now we’ve got some rich sugar daddy supporting us is no reason to abuse it! It’s not as if you’ve got anyone who’d care for the state of your nails with the world in danger of ending!” Dawn scolded the Slayer with the satisfied air of a younger sister who was always waiting for an opportunity to turn the tables on her older sibling. It reminded Rick of Martha and himself, in a way. Not that he’d ever say that. To either one.

“Two words, Dawn: Leather Jacket.” Buffy huffed, dusting her thighs off.

“That counts as armor and therefore as slay-gear!” Dawn protested.

“Gucci doesn’t make armor!” Buffy crossed her arms and stared at her sister.

“Well it should!” Dawn retorted.

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point!”

Before the discussion could escalate into an argument, Kennedy arrived behind Buffy, dragging a hose with her. The potential was struggling a bit, but not noticeably. Impressive, but far from the supernatural strength displayed by the Slayer. Xander took charge of the operation at that point, and soon the cement was hardening nicely over the seal, with a few iron crosses buried in it as well, just in case some vampire tried to dig it up again.

“I’m all covered in dust! And it’s not even vampire dust! If it rains, I’ll turn into a statute when it dries up again!” Buffy complained.

“At least then you’d look as old as you sound when you nag!” Apart from Dawn, always ready to needle her older sister, no one else reacted to her comments.

“How long do we have to wait until it’s dry?” Mary asked. She hadn’t had an outburst yet. Rick was impressed by her self-control.

“It’ll take a few days to harden fully,” Xander said, putting up some ‘do not cross’ signs borrowed from the construction site on the way. “But it’ll be soon too hard to leave your handprints in it.” He grinned, then blinked when the Slayer bent down and pressed both hands in the wet cement.

“Hey… it’s kind of our walk of fame,” Buffy defended herself while trying to wipe her hands clean without smearing cement on her clothes.

“If you squint and are on drugs.” But Dawn was eyeing the cement herself.

In the end, the cement was sporting handprints from everyone present before the group left the school’s basement.

*****

“So, ‘the presence of the First Evil destroys all plant life around it’. If I used that in a book, half the critics would claim it was too cheap, or too cliche as a plot point.” Rick shook his head at the unfairness of it as he followed the Slayer and Rupert Giles towards a Christmas tree lot. His flamethrower was hidden, somewhat, under a cut-up backpack, same as Xander’s. Rupert had declined to take one himself while Xander had persuaded Buffy that she would be needed as a quick reaction reserve to intercept charging vampires, and shouldn’t carry a flamethrower herself since she would be more effective in melee. It had sounded more convincing when the young man had said it than now, out in the last hour of the night, on the deserted street.

“Oh, yes! Evil older than recorded history just isn’t what it once was, back before humanity climbed down from the trees. First we have magic seals that look like someone copied a Heavy Metal band, and now we have the evil itself copying cheap fantasy novels! I’d have thought primordial forces had more pride, you know?” Xander asked.

“Well… maybe that’s a sign that Metal and cheap Fantasy novels are evil.“ Rick rubbed his chin. “My novels are expensive, by the way.”

“Don’t let Buffy hear that! She’ll try to kill the next rocker she meets!” Xander chuckled, and Rick joined him.

“Perhaps they sold their souls for fame and success, and the covers and plots were part of a discount? Sort of ‘advertise for us, and we’ll charge you less’?” Rick spun the thought further.

“What would be a discount on a soul? Isn’t that an all or nothing deal?” Xander asked, watching the entrance to a side alley they were passing. For all his goofy jokes and attitude, he moved like a trained soldier.

“I think those stupid enough to sell their souls probably don’t consider that,” Rick said, covering his own side.

“Well, if Spike can get a soul, they can’t be too rare.”

“Could you two shut up?” Buffy glared at both of them, hands on her hips. It should have looked cute rather than lethal, but she was the Slayer, and Rick and Xander shut up. Although the younger man did it with an exaggerated gesture as if he was zipping his lips shut. He had been the Slayer’s friend for years though, while Rick hadn’t.

The four walked the rest of the way in silence, with Rick and Xander exchanging a few looks behind the backs of the other two, quickly escalating into grimaces, until they both were chuckling. Buffy probably heard them, but didn’t react. Rick hoped she was not someone who held grudges.

The Christmas tree plot - Rick hadn’t know they even grew in California, wasn’t everything, from trees to chests, plastic here? - did have a part where all trees had died, but Rick refrained from making another comment.

“So, there is a cave somewhere here?” Rupert apparently hadn’t been there before either.

“Yes, back when I fought the First Evil for the first time. Or, rather, its priests, when they were driving Angel mad,” Buffy explained.

“Figures. If it’s not one vampire, it’s the other,” Xander muttered under his breath.

Buffy sent him a glare - Slayers had superhuman hearing, Rick reminded himself, something to keep in mind when snarking - then continued: “We just have to find the entrAAHHHH!”

Before their eyes, the Slayer broke through the ground and fell into a hole. “Found it!” she shouted from below. The cheery tone told them that she wasn't hurt.

“Wait for us, we’ll climb down!” Xander yelled down.

“No, no, it’s a bit narrow, and you’re carrying the flamers. I’ll just take a look around - scout a bit, in soldier-speak - and come back up!”

Rick didn’t show it, or so he hoped, but he was kind of relieved. Not because of the climbing down - though that would be a hassle - but fighting in narrow spaces and bad air with flamethrowers was not entirely without risk, as his British friends would say. And if he failed to climb up with the additional weight, and the Slayer had to pull, or worse, carry him up, he’d never live it down!

Still, that you were standing around a hole in the ground while a girl risked her life below simply didn’t feel like something you could tell your friends when swapping war stories. Xander didn’t look like he liked it either, but Rick thought the man was a bit overcompensating. He wondered if such damage to a male’s ego was listed in the Watcher’s handbook under the risks of associating with a Slayer. It should be, in his opinion.

Minutes passed, then they heard a scream. “It’s right behind me!”

Peering down, Rick could see Buffy climbing up frantically, not bothering to search for hand- and footholds, but simply punching and kicking into the packed earth. And behind her, visible in the cone of Rupert’s flashlight, was the ugliest vampire Rick had ever seen, gaining on the Slayer. Rick gripped the muzzle of his flamethrower. The thing was too close to the Slayer to make a shot. If he sprayed too much, or misjudged the cone…

Then the thing was on fire, dropping from the wall and thrashing around. Xander obviously hadn’t had any such doubts. Buffy, yelling about her hair pulled herself out of the hole and then patted her head until she was certain it was not burning. Meanwhile the thing down there was slowing down, and finally turned to ashes.

“Dear Lord!” Rupert was pale.

“Giles! I staked it, I hit its heart, and it didn’t dust! What is that? Was that?” Buffy demanded to know.

“It lasted far longer than a vamp usually does when on fire,” Xander added.

So that wasn’t an effect of the Hellmouth, Rick noted. “Was it a vampire? Or some sort of demon? Maybe a hybrid?” He had shied away from using those awful vampire-werewolf-hybrid abominations in his books, but if they actually existed…

“It was a Turok-Han. A legendary vampire, far more dangerous than its contemporary brethren. I thought they were just a myth…” Rupert seemed shocked.

“We dusted a myth? Will we get in trouble with a museum? Or PETA?”

While everyone turned to stare at Xander, Rick noticed that not being the one everyone glared at for a quip was quite a novel experience for him.

He wouldn’t give up that position to a younger challenger without a fight, of course!

*****

**Sunnydale, December 2002**

“I love you, Alexis! Merry Christmas!”

“I love you, Dad! Merry Christmas!”

Richard Castle smiled and passed his cellphone to his ex-wife, then walked around the porch to the backyard. He didn’t feel like going inside yet. He wasn’t ashamed that he was crying, but… the mood inside was sombre enough, there was no need to drag it down even more, on Christmas. Besides, Alexis and his mother were safe. Celebrating Christmas with his first ex-wife, a former colleague from work and a bunch of bloodthirsty college kids was a small price to pay for that.

He snorted. Many other men his age would be happy to be one of a few men in a house chock-full of girls, even though a primordial evil wanted to kill them all. A great number of such men would also be willing to exploit the situation, offer the girls a bit of comfort, or whatever the excuse would be. Not him though. He had principles. Morals. Standards. And a healthy respect for the Slayer and the potentials. Maybe a little bit of fear as well.

His gaze fell upon the shovel stuck in the earth near the target range for the flamethrowers. Maybe more than a little bit. He shivered at the memory of the ‘shovel speech’ the Slayer had given him after he had spent one evening talking about his books with Dawn and Willow, who were among his number one fans. As if he’d sleep with an underage teenager! Maybe he shouldn’t have shown them the scar from the first vampire he had met, but they had not giggled, or made jokes about love bites, but nodded in understanding. Though in hindsight, he should have stopped them from showing off their own scars. That had been so easy to misunderstand for someone who had just entered the room when Dawn had been lifting her shirt and Willow had been unbuttoning her blouse.

The redhead was not interested anyway - she was still wobbling back and forth between being interested in and scared of Kennedy. It would have been very entertaining to observe, if they hadn’t been facing the First Evil.

That was the real dampener for this Christmas celebration: the prospect of a battle for their lives that was hanging over all of their heads. It was hard to get a celebration going when death might await them all. Well, hard for the potentials and the other guests in Sunnydale - the ‘Scoobies’, as apparently the core crew around Buffy called themselves, were old hands at ignoring such things when there was a party to be had. Even Rupert, and he had let slip that Buffy was even worse on Thanksgiving.

So, at least a few were having fun, and if Rick was right, the rest would follow, helped along by some liquid Christmas spirit. He wasn’t in the mood for that, yet. Nor to watch the potentials hanging all over Xander, Anya’s disapproval notwithstanding. Dear Lord, if he wrote such a passage in a novel, people would complain about turning ‘Vampire Hunter’ into a soap opera! A teenage drama, at that. He shook his head, chuckling at Gina’s possible reaction.

“Martha and Alexis send their regards.” Mary had apparently followed him, not understanding that he wanted to be alone. Not that she ever truly understood him. “Shouldn’t you be inside, impressing the underage girls with daring tales straight out of the Watcher’s Journals?”

Mary hadn’t taken the completely natural, if not so innocent interest of the potentials in a ruggedly handsome and rich vampire hunting author well. Probably because there was no similar interest in her. Her jealousy had always been her worst flaw. He turned his head to her. “Shouldn’t you be inside, telling them how to properly celebrate Christmas?”

“I left them the Watcher’s Handbook for field Christmas. They’ll be OK,” Mary said.

Castle stared at her. “That was a decent joke, with self-deprecating humour even. California is good for you!”

“We British have always been good at gallows humour. You Yankees just seldom get our jokes,” Mary shot back, and he could hear the edge behind her levity. She was tightly-wound, so he just laughed and didn’t escalate.

The two of them stared at the backyard, illuminated by the Christmas decoration that had almost cost two potentials their lives or at least their pride before Xander had stepped in and mounted the ensemble without risking anyone’s electrocution. The formerly pristine lawn had been turned into a battlefield - burned, trampled, even hacked to pieces in places by potentials getting trained by a veteran Slayer, a young man with the memories of soldier, and one former mass-murdering vampire, who had apparently regained his soul. Castle had known people tended to rediscover the meaning of Christmas during the holiday season, but this was a success story the church probably wouldn’t want published.

“Do you think she’s sleeping with it?” Mary whispered.

“I think I’d rather not know, or think about such private details.” Castle answered. He knew Slayers had supernatural hearing, and vampires too. “Besides, didn’t Travers vet Spike years ago?” He was quite proud he didn’t add a few adjectives to Travers’s name.

“I am quite certain he didn’t know about that particular private detail,” Mary pressed out through her lips.

“No one else seems to have a problem with that.” Rick shrugged.

“Mister Harris and Rupert do not approve.” Mary stared at him with disapproval written over her face.

“They haven’t staked him yet, and given the way the locals seem to to voice their disapproval with lethal violence when they’re really serious, that’s as good as handing the bride over at the altar I’d say.” Rick shrugged again, and hid his amusement at her reaction. “Besides, he’s chained up in the basement. Although that doesn’t preclude some kinky action, of course.”

Marry sniffed at that remark, turned on her heels, and walked into the house. Mission accomplished. Rick sighed, then jumped up, gasping, when the Slayer revealed herself right next to him.

“For someone who does not want to know about my private life, you’re making with the speculation a lot.”

“Jesus! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Don’t worry, you’re not that old yet. And you’ll not be getting any older if I ever catch you with my sister, Mister ‘I write tales about Watchers sleeping with teenagers’!” For someone who barely reached five foot, Buffy Summers could be very threatening. Mike Tyson would probably shy away from her glare, so Rick didn’t feel bad at cringing.

“I told you! I am not interested in Dawn!” he protested.

“She’s interested in you though. She always had a taste for men completely unsuited for her. Her first date was a vampire, you know,” the Slayer said.

“Shouldn’t you be frightening her into staying a good girl then, instead of terrifying me?” Rick knew he sounded a bit petulant, but he couldn’t help it.

“Of course not. She’s my sister, if I tell her not to do something, she’d do it out of spite. Or do you, in this case.” Buffy grinned with a slightly manic touch. “Scaring you works, though!”

“You’d blame me for your sister’s faults? That is so unfair!” Castle pouted at her. She was probably joking. At least a bit.

“You’ve been married to Miss Watcher Handbook, you should be used to getting blamed.” With a wide smile, the Slayer nodded at the shovel in the corner, then stepped inside.

Castle had to ask Rupert how he had managed to not become an alcoholic living with those maniacs. Or, if Rupert hadn’t managed that, ask where he kept his stash.

*****

**Sunnydale, January 2003**

“We’re up against the First Evil. The force who invented the concept of evil. How many of us will die, screaming, in the battle? So many potentials have been killed already…” Eve sighed dramatically, and Castle was sure the girl was close to crying. And the rest of the potentials - their number had grown over Christmas again - were not doing much better. With the exception of Kennedy, who was putting the moves on Willow. She’d made progress over the holidays too - the redhead didn’t try to flee any more when she was getting cornered by the rich girl. Still, Willow was not yet falling into the potential’s arms, and if she’d hold out another week, then Castle would win the pot.

“But we’re with the Slayer. We’re safe!” Rona answered Eve. The redhead, Vi, nodded.

Eve shook her head, hugging herself. Castle would have tried to calm her down, but each time he as much as took a step towards her, she was shying away from him. “She won’t be able to protect us. She can’t even protect her best friends, or their friends. Xander’s best friend was turned under her watch. Willow’s girlfriend was killed because of her. She's a danger to us all!”

“And you’re dead!” Buffy was suddenly standing in the door. To his horror, Castle saw two daggers flying towards Eve - and passing straight through the girl, as if she was… oh, Buffy hadn’t gone crazy, but had been speaking literally.

Eve sneered at them, then laughed. “Finally found her corpse? It doesn’t matter. None of you will escape me!”

“We found her body. You’re not Eve, you’re the First! And we’ll kick your ass down to hell whenever you dare popping up!” Buffy stepped in front of the ... ghost? Projection? Illusion?

Laughing louder, the girl disappeared. Buffy turned around, addressing everyone. “Alright, we’ve been infiltrated by the First. She can take the form of any dead person you know. Knew. Whatever. But she can’t touch anyone. So, we’ll be using a buddy system, and touch ourselves a lot. I mean, each other!” the Slayer corrected herself while blushing slightly.

Xander nodded. “If you see someone alone, touch them. Even if you know they’re not dead, touch them. Get in touch with your inner toucher. Now’s the time to get all touchy but not touchy-feely.”

Most groaned at Xander’s puns, but a few of the girls looked very interested. A squeak from Willow told Castle that Kennedy had adopted the new policy enthusiastically.

“That’s touching, not groping,” Rick added.

“Actually, that pretty much was groping,“ Anya cut in. “Xander used to grope me all the time like that, and then we had sex.”

“A touching revelation we all would like to hear more about, but I’ll have to find Mary and inform her of this.” Rick knew a cue to exit the stage when he saw one. Martha’s rehearsals had seen to that. He took a step back, grinned at the coughing Xander, who was the center of attention now, and left the room before any of the underage hotties or former vengeance demons decided to grope him.

*****

**Sunnydale, January 2003**

Rick Castle would have thought that leaving the Hellmouth - even if only for a day or so - would make him feel relieved. Like a small vacation. Or some day off.

He should have been suspicious when everyone else begged off from helping Rupert driving the potentials out to the desert so they could meet the First Slayer in some binding ritual or vision quest, to strengthen their spirit and maybe themselves as well.

“Stop that noise, we’ve been listening to that shit for hours now! Switch to a channel that plays songs from this millennium!” Kennedy complained. She had already been mad at not getting to grope Willow for this trip.

“No! We’ve been listening to your garbage for hours, this is just where it’s getting good!” Rona, sitting up front, didn’t share the other potential’s taste in songs.

“Shut up you two, I am reading here!” Annabelle glared at both.

“If I have to sit in the middle in the back, I get at least to pick the song!” Violet - ‘Vi’ - piped up.

“No you don’t!” Kennedy disagreed. Again.

“Not for the whole trip!” Annabelle chimed in.

“I don’t care, I am switching channels now!” Rona exclaimed.

“Hold her back!” Kennedy tried to grab the other’s arm.

“Leggo of my hair!” Rona whined, the seatbelt hindering her defense against Vi.

Watch it, I… ooof!” Annabelle had just become collateral damage in the latest fight over the radio.

While Annabelle and Vi started to strangle each other, Rick grinded his teeth, then channeled his best inner drill sergeant, or what he thought he’d be like, and bellowed at the four annoyances: “Would you girls stop acting like children? My eight year old daughter is more mature than all of you combined, and she has tantrums over her dinner!” Granted, that had been over all the salt and fat and sugar in Pizza, and right after she had read a health brochure, and had been worried about his and Martha’s health, but they didn’t need to know that as long as they shut up. Which they did.

He used the time to switch the channel to a country station. In hindsight, that had been a mistake as well. At least he could be certain that none of them were the First.

*****

“How did you survive the drive?” Rick asked while clapping Rupert on the back. No First here either.

“I am not convinced that I did. After this drive I am now quite certain that they play Britney Spears in hell itself.” The British Watcher shuddered while their charges limbered up after the long drive.

Castle looked around the rather desolate desert while Rupert gave instructions to the girls to build a fire. If not for the lack of uniforms, it could be mistaken for a girl scout camp. Or a catholic school field trip. Right down to the complaining and bitching. Even outside the Hellmouth’s influence, it was still destroying some of Rick’s fondest fantasies.

With the help of a bit of spare gas they got the fire going, though, at which point Rupert broke out the incense and other drugs - not that Castle’s straight-laced colleague would ever call them that - and told the potentials to gather around the fire and get ready to meditate with their favorite weapons in their laps.

To the author’s surprise, it didn’t take long for the girls to enter a trance - one after the other, their postures changed. He felt a shiver run down his spine when the last girl stared into the fire with glazed-over eyes, her breathing slowing down noticeably. ”That’s damn creepy.”

“You’ve never meditated, I take it?” Rupert laid out a quilt and sat down.

“I faked it a few times to impress a girl that was heavily into New Age. Does that count?” Rick asked while sitting down next to his colleague.

“I don’t think so,” Rupert said, but he was grinning.

Mary would have scowled at him for not being serious enough. Well, she was the one stuck doing some ritual to find out more about the First, together with the rest of the scoobies! She was also not the one sitting in the desert staring at a fire and hoping this was as cold as it could get in California. “So… now we wait?”

“Now we wait.” The British Watcher pulled out a book from his bag and started to read.

Rick busied himself by checking his Ack Pack, and his other weapons. Twice. Then he sighed. Before he could say anything though, Rupert handed him a book.

“‘A treatise on the Hellmouth’? Seriously? You know none of those authors can write worth a damn!” Castle raised his eyebrows at Rupert, but the man kept reading his own book.

An hour later, Castle was ready to burn the book. That author couldn’t write to save his life! Or anyone else’s! He could almost feel his brain cells die from boredom. Only the knowledge of what Rupert would do to him should he burn what now was a substantial part of the Watcher’s library - until they got access to the microfilm copies, at least - kept him from acting on his urge.

“Did you hear that?” Rupert’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He had known the man was not as engrossed in his own book as he had appeared to be! “Someone’s coming!”

That made Castle tense up at once. Two men alone in the desert, with a bunch of drugged teenage girls and enough weapons to re-enact the Battle of Hastings, plus esoteric books… that wouldn’t paint a pretty picture for anyone taking a closer look. Hopefully it wasn’t a cop or a member of whatever passed as rangers in California. But when he saw over a dozen robed figures approaching them, he wished they were cops.

”I don’t suppose hooded robes are the new black in California?” Rick asked while he slipped his flamethrower on.

“While I am no expert on West Coast fashion, I do believe this is not the case.” Rupert got his sword out. “More are approaching from the other side.”

“That’s far enough!” Castle shouted. In a lower voice, he added: “Always wanted to say that!”

The first figure threw back its hood, revealing a human face with eyes stitched shut. Castle didn’t wait for Rupert to identify them and pulled the trigger. His first one-second burst caught the leading demon… thing, and the two next to him. They burned almost as well as vampires, but not quite as quickly, and shrieked inhumanly as they thrashed around on the ground.

“Dear Lord, Bringers!”

“Cover my back!” Castle fired another burst at the demons on his side, then ran towards Rupert, who was falling back from half a dozen, with more behind them, while readying a Molotov cocktail. Another two bursts from the Ack Pack incinerated most of them, and the cocktail took care of the surviving one, but Castle could see more demons coming at them - rushing them now. He sprayed fuel on the ground in a wide arc, then ignited it, forming a barrier of fire on that side, but in the meantime, the demons on the other side had gone around the burning ones, and were now charging at the fire - and at the still entranced potentials.

“Wake them up!” Castle shouted, firing desperately at the demons. He had five, now four ignition charges left, but he had used more fuel than usual for the barrier.

“It’s dangerous to wake them when they are in trance!” Rupert yelled back, slashing at one demon and cutting off its hand.

“Getting killed by demons is dangerous too!” Rick fired at the next demon, turning it into a flailing burning figure. When he next pulled the trigger, the ignition charge went off, but the fuel was cut off after half a second. It was enough to drive the next one back, but they were still surrounded. “Do it!” he shouted, hitting the quick-release on the harness Xander had constructed and drawing his sword.

He met the next charge of the closest mutilated demon with his blade, barely managing to deflect the blow from it, then slashed its belly open when it lost its balance for a second. He still had to fall back when it kept coming at it even while its guts were sliding out of its belly.

“They’re not waking up!” Rupert shouted more bad news. Between the fire, the still burning gasoline on the ground, and the smoldering demons, Castle was sure there were at least half a dozen of the bringers left. Probably more. And they were stronger and faster than either him or Rupert! Tougher too.

He saw another one running towards the closest girl, and ran to intercept it. He succeeded - in a way. The demon stopped to attack him, and Castle couldn’t evade quickly enough. A blow to his stomach drove the air out of his lungs and threw him back and to the ground. He lost his sword in the fall, not that he felt like he’d be able to lift it. Coughing and panting, he managed to roll on his stomach, then started to get up when he saw the eviscerated demon walking towards him as well.

Rupert was busy fighting - or rather, getting beaten - by two more. There would be no help coming from him. Castle rolled to the side, grunting in pain, and managed to evade getting stomped into a thin paste by the demon behind him. He threw a handful of sand at its head, which it ignored. A rock bounced off its head, causing it stop its advance for a second, only to grin evilly.

Rick realized then he’d die here. Torn to pieces, or crushed and broken. He, Rupert, and all the potentials. Why hadn’t anyone thought of such an attack? Planned for it? Another three flamethrowers, or one Slayer, and the demons would have been dead.

Dead like he’d be in a second. The demon not dragging its guts over the sand grinned and closed in, raising its hands to smash them into Rick. He would have liked to make a last defiant remark, but he couldn’t think of a good one in the second he had left to live.

Then the demon’s head separated from its neck, and the body toppled over in a spray of blood. Vi stood behind it, sword in hand and still in trance. She wasn’t alone. All around Rick - and Rupert - the potentials were falling on the demons, slaughtering them with a ferocity Castle hadn’t seen before. They looked more than a little like demons themselves, especially in the flickering light of the burning fires.

Rick managed to get on his feet, and stumble over to Rupert, who was holding his arm but otherwise seemed to be OK. “Did you expect that?”

“I didn’t expect it, but it was a possibility,” his colleague answered, adjusting his glasses.

“What’s going on?” Castle winced when he saw Vi and Kennedy disarm a demon - literally.

“Possession. The First Slayer’s possessing them,” his British friend bit out.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Rick shuddered seeing Rona wear a grin more feral than human while she split a demon’s head.

He looked at Rupert, and the other man’s expression was answer enough.

*****

**Sunnydale, January 2003**

“You know, Vi… Violet… that’s close enough. Really. Personal space is a thing, you know? A thing I need.” Rick Castle knew he was babbling, but any man faced with a possessed potential Slayer _sniffing_ him while covered in the blood of Bringers would react the same way.

“T-this is n-not a-apropriate, Miss. You are u-underage and I am f-far too old f-for y-you… really.”

Case in point: Rupert was babbling a few yards away from him, faced with Rona tugging at his belt. None of the girls had spoken since the fight.

“No one ever mentioned this when I joined the Council.” Castle was backing away from Vi, slowly, to avoid provoking the predator currently possessing her. He wasn’t certain she understood him any more. “Everyone only ever mentioned the dangers of getting killed by demons. No one said anything about potentials. Is this common for such events?”

“T-there have been r-reports about some Slayers - some! - h-having c-certain urges, after a b-baamhph,” Rupert’s explanation was cut off by Rona grabbing the Englishman’s head and mashing her lips on his. For a moment, everyone seemed to be staring at the two. Then a growl cut through the sudden silence. Annabelle grabbed Rona’s hair and pulled her away from Rupert, throwing her to the ground in the process. Rona didn’t take that lying down, and soon the two were fighting.

Castle would have usually made a comment about needing mud, if not for Vi still being far too close to him, and the fight looking more like the Hulk vs. The Terminator than Cindy vs. Cherry in the ‘Dream Palace’ in Las Vegas. And it was spreading - the two bumped into other potentials, who took offense as if this was a testosterone-filled saloon in a Western movie.

Rupert used the opportunity and fled to his car. Castle followed his example, praying that Vi wouldn’t give chase.

God wasn’t listening that night though, and the author was tackled and brought down a few yards from his M3.

“That’s a first down, Vi. Well done! Now you have to get back up in linooof!” Castle was flipped on his back in mid-babble, then straddled by the possessed girl. He was quite sure she almost crushed his hips while she ripped his shirt off. She leered at him, grunting, and reached for his belt.

Before she managed to rip his belt and pants off though, she was hit in the face with a load of white powder. Coughing, she rolled off Castle, who was covered with in the powder himself.

“Run!” Rupert yelled while emptying Castle’s car fire extinguisher into Vi’s face. Rick staggered to his feet and ran to his car, followed by Rupert.

Inside, both men, panting, looked at each other.

“Can they break through a car window?” Castle asked while trying to find out if he really had a broken pelvis, or if it just felt like it was broken.

“In their state, anything seems p-possible.”

They didn’t stop the car until they were half a mile away.

*****

“Welcome b… what happened to you?” Buffy was staring at Castle and Rupert, mouth wide open. They were a sight, alright. Clothes ripped, bruises visible, white powder from the extinguisher still covering skin here and there.

“We were attacked by Bringers during the ritual,” Rupert stated. “We beat them with the help of the potentials. There were no casualties.”

The potentials mumbled some agreement and filed into the house past Buffy. They didn’t sport any bruises, some healing factor must have kicked in, Castle thought, but their clothes were torn up as well, and they kept their heads down. The drive back had been a very quiet affair - no one had wanted to talk about the fight, much less about what had happened afterwards.

“That must have been a battle!” Buffy sounded almost jealous.

“Yes. We were in quite the sticky situation, but we persevered,” Rupert commented, looking as dignified as a British man could with his shirt and part of his pants missing.

“Wow, G-Man! Did you have an orgy out there?” Xander joked, then paled under the combined glares of the potentials and the two Watchers. “I’ll be… checking the boiler.” The young man fled with all due haste.

Rupert shook his head. “That boy’s tongue will be the death of him, one day.”

“That’s what my mother always said about me!” Castle grinned at his friend’s glare.

“So, did anything important happen while we were on our trip?” Rupert asked, in a tone that made it clear he expected the answer to be “No.”

Buffy nibbled on her lower lip and studied the floor. “Wellll…. define ‘important’?

“Buffy?” Rupert stopped polishing his glasses and cocked his head at her.

“Well…” Buffy’s smile looked more and more forced.

“Yo, G!” A well-endowed dark-haired girl in black leather and jeans waved at them, leaning on the door to the living room. “New guy!”

“Faith,” Rupert said in a cold voice.

“Gee. Chill, G. I am here to help. Got a Slayer dream in prison, and some demons tried to kill me, so I broke out and made my way here.”

Castle realized that this was Faith Lehane. The Rogue Slayer. The Killer.

“I see.” The British Watcher looked at Buffy, who cringed slightly and shrugged. He gave a very curt nod to the two girls and headed towards his room.

Buffy went after him with a slightly whiny “Giles!”

Faith turned to Castle. “You know, I would have thought that he’d be a bit loosened up after driving for hours with a couple half-naked chicks in the car.”

“I can say from personal experience that such an event is highly overrated. At least without copious amounts of alcohol,” Castle said.

“Ah… they didn’t want to use you to take care of their horny urges?” Faith grinned. “Well, if you’ve got a case of blue balls, I can help you out.”

If this ever got out, Castle would lose his ‘ruggedly handsome rake’ and ‘Bro Club’ membership cards. “Thank you for the offer, but I need rest. It was a pitched fight, and we all got banged up,” he said.

When the Slayer snickered, Castle rolled his eyes and walked past towards his room. Hopefully the locks would keep any further trouble out until he had slept for a day or so.

*****

The next morning, Castle felt far better. Well-rested, his bruises treated, his clothes fresh and whole, he smiled on his way to the kitchen. No one there seemed to share his good mood though.

“What happened?” he asked Buffy, the one who seemed the most coherent.

“Slayer dreams. Everyone had them - me, Faith, all of the potentials,” the blonde said, holding a mug of coffee in her hands and staring at the wall.

“I take it they were not the kind of dreams that leave you happy or frustrated.” Castle made a weak joke and got a cup of coffee himself. He still hadn’t bought a better coffee maker.

“No. Giles’s trying to do the decrypting thing. He must be into his third batch of ‘fascinating’ by now.” Buffy took a sip from her mug, and closed her eyes. “Your ex-wife is trying to help him.” She opened her eyes and turned to him. “Do you think the two were an item in the past?”

Castle spit out his coffee. “What? How did you come up with that?”

“Well… they’re both British. They’re both Watchers. They both like books and tweed and tea,” Buffy looked at him as if that was reason enough.

“That’s no base for a relationship,” Castle said, refraining from making a Monty Python reference. “Besides, I assure you, Rupert has much better taste in women!”

Buffy smiled at that, though with relief and not humour, as far as Rick could tell. He didn’t know what to make of that.

“Well… with Rupert and Mary busy, and the potentials - we really need to find a catchier name, by the way - recovering from their dreams, maybe we should work on reinforcing the villa’s defenses. I’ve got a couple ideas.” Castle refilled his cup and hunted for a croissant, or anything edible the Slayers and the proto-Slayers had missed.

“What a coincidence! I have some ideas as well!” Xander grinned broadly, and snatched the last doughnut before Castle could claim the box. “We might have to raid the local Army base though, to get everything I need.”

Castle didn’t think robbing the US Army was a smart move. They wouldn’t accept ‘we need it to save the world’ as an excuse, unless he was completely mistaken. “Let’s see what we can do with legal supplies first, Xander.”

The young man sighed, but nodded. “Okey-dokey. We can do it the no-fun way, too.” The glance he and Buffy exchanged didn’t look like he had given up on his plans though.

“You look like you’ve got experience robbing the armory.” Castle raised his eyebrows.

“Well… we might have borrowed a few things in the past, to battle evil of course!” Xander said.

Buffy nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! The rocket launcher for the Judge. The detonators for the bomb we blew the school up with. The missiles we used against Glory. The machine gun against Adam’s horde.”

“That doesn’t count, Buffy, that was from the Initiative,” Xander corrected her.

“It was still the army’s though!” Buffy protested.

That sounded less like an Army base, and more like a self-service weapon supermarket. Well… it was quite surprising how much an upcoming apocalypse put things into perspective. “I always wanted my own tank.” He had been five at the time, but some dreams never died.

“We can get a tank?” Buffy perked up. “I didn’t know they had tanks there!”

“They don’t, Buffy.” Now it was up to Xander to be the killjoy, and destroy the dreams of people… well, not everywhere, but at least in this house. “But we can stock up on all sorts of rockets, explosives, guns and grenades.”

“And fuel,” Castle added. “Lots of fuel for flame traps.” The British Homeguard’s flame traps might not have worked well against the Germans, would they have invaded, but they looked like tailor-made to battle demons.

The three shared some very nasty grins, then they stuck their heads together and started to plan.

*****

**Sunnydale, January 2003**

“I know you said it was easy to sneak into the base, but you didn’t mention that the soldiers actually load up your truck for you. It really is like shopping in the supermarket…” Rick Castle, disguised as a soldier, refrained from shaking his head in disbelief as he muttered under his breath.

Xander, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant, grinned while watching a squad of soldiers from the base labor to load the supplies he wanted into the truck they had commandeered. “When we got the rocket launcher, we used a pretty girl as a distraction, and came during the night. Since then, we’ve found out that Willow hacking up some orders, and Buffy sneaking in the office and dropping off the paperwork over night, so we can come and get it all legal-like, works better.”

“If that’s legal I don’t want to know what you’d consider illegal.” Castle was sitting in the cabin of the truck, playing driver.

“Hey, careful with that ordnance, private!” Xander shouted at a pair of soldiers handling a crate a bit too casually. The soldiers jerked, and almost dropped it, before recovering.

“I thought the ordnance couldn’t go off if it was dropped.” Unless Hollywood hadn’t lied to him that time.

“It can’t. But officers always make a fuss about it,” Xander said. “I’d rather be a sergeant, but I am too young-looking for that position, so I am a green, assholy 2nd Louie.”

“I could have been the sergeant!” Castle grinned.

“No, you couldn’t. Any real sergeant would have pegged you as an impostor right away.” Xander shook his head, at the soldiers and at Castle.

“I’ll have you know that acting is in my blood!” Rick said. He wasn’t pouting, not really.

“Must be running rather thin, then. Or you’re better suited for other roles than tough sarges.” Xander stood at parade rest, as he called it, checked his watch, and frowned some more. Rick cut his losses. Xander was too good at playing soldier. If it could be called playing, seeing as he had the actual memories of a veteran.

“Just hypothetically… if we get caught, how many years behind bars is that worth?” Rick asked, after a while, when the soldiers were carrying the last few crates out of the depot.

“In the current War against Terror? We’ll be lucky to ever see the daylight again before we die from old age,” Xander said as if he was talking about the weather. If that was what growing up on the Hellmouth did to kids, Rick was very glad there was an entire continent between it and his daughter.

“Of course, if we mess up, odds are the First wins, and then we’d probably die before they even finish the investigation anyway. With the rest of humanity,” Xander added, looking grim. Rick didn’t know if that was an act for the soldiers, or a glimpse of the young man’s real thoughts on the topic.

He still felt much better when he drove the truck out of the base, and he kept expecting someone - a tank, a helicopter, a jet - to stop them before they reached the small forest, where Buffy and a few potentials waited, to switch cars and clothes.

*****

“Vi! Don’t open that! Annabelle! Put the C-4 down! Faith! What did we agree on loading weapons in the house?”

Xander was sounding like he was close to losing his temper, sanity, or both. Unpacking a truckload of weapons and ordnance and fuel with a bunch of potentials and two Slayers was like trying to keep a stack of fresh, juicy meat from a pack of starving wolves - nigh-impossible, and almost suicidal.

Ever since that trip into the desert, the potentials had been stronger, faster and tougher. Not on the level of Buffy or Faith, but far stronger than they had any right to be with their bodies. Rupert theorized that the Slayer Spirit had entered all of them, as a reaction to the attempt of the First to erase the entire Slayer line. Given their newfound skills and love of weaponry, they might have, in fact, been activated as Slayers - both Buffy and Faith had years of experience, and apparently, Slayers grew in power the longer they lived, which would explain the difference to the minis, as Faith called them.

Of course, if that was true, then that made the Cruciamentum an even more brainless practise, on par with shooting yourself in the foot, or belly, before a race. At least that was Castle’s opinion. Mary had disagreed, and the row that had led to apparently even had impressed Anya.

“I’ve discovered the meaning of the dreams!” Rupert stormed into the living room, then froze at seeing it filled with modern weapons and enough explosives to blow up a school twice over. “Dear Lord!”

It was a good thing, Rick thought, that his colleague hadn’t seen the garage where they stored the gasoline for the flame traps.

“G-Man, I have never felt as close to you as today! I now finally understand just what you went through each day, before we grew up.” Xander smiled tiredly at the older man.

“Hey!” Buffy apparently took offense at that, but since she was holding a partially-dismantled light machine gun in her hands, it didn’t impress anyone.

“Xander… I approve of the sentiment, but I would contest the notion that you’ve grown up yet.” Rupert looked around. “Anyway. I’m reasonably certain that I have deciphered the meaning of the recent Slayer dreams.” Everyone present stared at him with anticipation in their eyes, weapons in their hands forgotten for the moment. “But maybe we should discuss this in a less … militarised area.” Rupert smiled weakly, and started to retreat to the study.

When Castle noticed how that last line left all the Slayers currently carrying weapons confused, he heartily agreed. “Let’s store the explosives at a safe place before we join him.”

*****

“So… we need to find a magic sword-thingy tied to the Slayer line so we can kill the First even without her having a real body?” Buffy Summers looked up from the M-60 cradled in her hands. She hadn’t put the gun down since she had unpacked it.

“That’s… the gist of it, yes.” Rupert didn’t sound too happy with his Slayer’s talent for condensing his rather lengthy explanation into one sentence.

“And the only way to find it, since it’s somewhere underground, is by magic,” Buffy continued.

“That is essentially correct as well. The odds of finding it by conventional means border on impossible.” Rupert nodded.

“Great. Since I am Slayer-girl, and not magic-girl, I can leave that to others and I can go play with my new baby then!” Buffy happily declared and left the study, followed by the rest of the Slayers, apparently as eager as the blonde to test the procured weapons.

“This is creepy. She’s as enthusiastic about those guns as she is about shoes,” Dawn said.

“Isn’t that normal for a Slayer?” Rick’s personal experience so far certainly would lead to that conclusion.

“In the past, she preferred more traditional weapons,” Rupert said.

“Well, she didn’t let me fire the rocket at the Judge… even though I had and have more experience with it than she had,” Xander said. “And this is the first time we stole machine guns and assault rifles. We’ve kept things a bit more low-key until now.”

“Rocket launchers are ‘low-key’?” Rick raised his eyebrows.

“Those were exceptions during emergencies.”

“The local law enforcement turns a blind eye towards supernatural attacks, but they are unlikely to ignore automatic weapons, or firearms in general,” Rupert explained. “And firearms generally do not do well enough against vampires and a slew of other demons to justify the added complications.” With a glance at Xander, the Watcher added: “Though there were exceptions.”

Dawn muttered something about ‘Knights of Byzantium’ Castle didn’t catch, but those near her winced.

“Yeah,” Spike cut in. “You can riddle a vampire with bullets, and unless you shatter the bones, it won’t stop him for long.” He grinned. “More than a few Initiative soldiers found that out the hard way when they were caught without their fancy tasers.”

“They should perform well against Bringers though. And given the numbers we are facing, we’ll need them,” Xander said. With a glance to Willow, who had been uncharacteristically silent ever since they had carried the weapons inside, he added: “I am sorry, Will. We really need them.”

The witch, apparently one of the most powerful practitioners of magic known to what was left of the Council, slowly nodded. She and Xander hugged each other. There was a tragic story behind that, Castle knew, but he wasn’t about to pry.

“Does that mean I get to pick a gun too?” Anya asked eagerly.

Dawn chimed in as well: “And me?”

Everyone else stared at the two, shaking their heads in unison. “No.”

The resulting argument took an hour to resolve.

*****

**Sunnydale, February 2003**

“It’s truly a sign of the Apocalypse!”

“What is?” Rick Castle looked up from where he was putting one of the last nozzles of the flame traps on the balcony overlooking the driveway to the villa when he heard Xander’s comment.

The young man pointed at the column of the last cars leaving the town in the distance. The streets had been full of them for weeks. “You know, rivers of blood, frogs raining down from the sky, Sunnydale residents finally fleeing the Hellmouth. They stayed despite death rates and people going missing in numbers that would have given refugees from Somalia pause, but now they’ve fled. Everyone. Everyone but us.”

“Principal Wood is staying in his school too. Dawn said so, last time she checked.” That was one dedicated principal. And probably soon one dead principal, given that his school was built right on top of the Hellmouth. Castle had been suspicious of the man, but he had checked out.

“He doesn’t count. Son of a Slayer, rogue vampire hunter… he’s like us.” Xander’s respect for the man was audible in his tone.

Neither man commented on the reason Wood hadn’t joined forces with them: Spike. The vampire who had killed his mother. Wood hadn’t taken the news of Spike’s redemption and resouling well. Of course, ‘Sorry for killing your mum. She was a good fighter. Do you want her coat back?’ might have been an honest attempt at an apology for Spike, but it hadn’t been a very effective one. Buffy knocking the man out when he had tried to stake the vampire then had pretty much sealed the deal. Or rift. When they found the scythe and moved against the First, they’d have to deal with Wood, though. Castle wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Xander! Castle!” Vi’s excited voice announced her arrival before she reached the balcony. “She’s done it!”

“Call me Rick, Vi.” Castle turned towards her. “Who did what?” If that was another ‘she touched my weapon’ incident… no, she was too excited for that.

“Willow! She found the Scythe! We just have to recover it!”

“Great!” Castle smiled. With the ‘Ghost Touch Scythe’, as Xander had it dubbed in D&D terms, found, they only needed to recover it and stab the First with it, and he could return to his family.

“Fuck!” Xander exclaimed.

Castle turned towards him and was about to ask why he was not happy to hear the news when he saw a veritable army, no, a horde, of Bringers move towards the villa. If he ever used such a scene for a book, he’d have the characters say something less profane, but right then, Xander’s expletive summed his reaction up well enough.

“Fuck.”

*****

**Sunnydale, February 2003**

“Hold fire!” Xander’s voice rang out from the balcony.

“We can’t wait until we see the white in their eyes - they don’t have eyes!” Rick Castle snarked. It made it easier to refrain from shooting at the Bringers as soon as he had his rifle aimed. The demons were clad in dark, tattered and ragged robes, and charging at them like a human wave. Demon Wave. He was reminded of a few horror movies. Hopefully, this would not follow that sort of script.

Next to him on the balcony, Buffy had her M60 trained on the attackers, a feral grin on her pretty face. Anya, Dawn and Annabelle were on lookout duty on the roof, to the side and rear. Faith and a few more minis, as she called the new Slayers, would be down on the ground, in case the demons somehow managed to breach the walls. Castle couldn’t see how they would achieve that though - they had enough ammo to reenact Omdurman, with great defensive positions to boot.

“Fire!” Xander shouted.

A dozen light machine guns opened up, and the first row of the bringers was cut down at once. The Slayers fired textbook short bursts. Castle simply pulled the trigger on his rifle as fast as he could. The author was reminded of World War 1 movies, the way an attack was mowed down in no-man’s land. He felt almost a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t get to use his flame traps, judging by the rate the demons were dying.

But right then, a giant explosion shook the entire villa, worse than an earthquake. Castle was thrown to the ground, and when he got up again, he saw that the entire front wall and gate had disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. Debris was raining down on the area, pelting them with rocks and chunks of earth.

And through that cloud came the Bringers. More than Rick had seen before, charging at the villa. He was still dazed and struggled to move his rifle, but the Slayers were already shooting again, stopping the demons from getting farther than a few yards onto the front yard - or what was left of it. Faith and the others were shooting from the ground floor too now, and the bodies were piling up quickly.

The dust cloud was slowly settling, and Rick could see that the street had been torn up in a wide semi-crater in front of their lot. It looked like the protective spells Willow had laid over the villa and yard had saved their lives, for now.

Then more explosions went off, to the side and behind them. Smaller though.

“Sappers!” Xander shouted. “The walls are breached, shift fire! Hit the traps!”

Rick hurried to the flame trap set on the balcony, checked the nozzles, then triggered it. Much of the front wall’s remains disappeared in the flames shot at it. A second later the traps at the rear and to the sides went off, and the villa was engulfed in smoke and fire. The screeching of dozens of demons burning to death drowned out the gunfire for a moment.

And still the bringers came at them. Burning, bleeding, trailing guts and body parts, they came. A group at the side managed to get through a spot where the flame traps had been destroyed by the explosion. A mini-slayer started to mow them down, but one of them pounced her. Seconds later it, she and part of the porch were torn to shreds by another explosion.

“They are carrying bombs!” Castle shouted, terrified now. Demon suicide bombers? Someone had seen too many war movies. Demons weren’t supposed to be that smart!

Down below, near the garage, one Slayer had to reload. The few seconds this took were long enough for another bringer to pounce on her and the bomb it carried blew them both to bits.

Xander, who hadn’t been shooting himself so far, was firing now. “We can’t sustain this that long!”

Buffy shouted back “Breakout?” while she methodically shot the Bringers still trying to scramble over the blasted, burning remains of the front wall and gate. The tiny blonde was holding back the tide there almost by herself, but her ‘Baby’, as she had named her M-60, had to be overheating soon. Castle was shaking, but kept shooting at the ragged forms running at the villa below him. He didn’t know if he was hitting them, or if someone else got them and he kept missing.

“The road’s gone - we can’t leave!” Xander threw a grenade to the side. “Fire in the hole!” He slapped a new magazine into his rifle. “And they’ll massacre us if we try to run on foot.”

“Cover me, Baby’s needing her barrel swapped!” Buffy yelled, and Castle and Xander started firing at the front in bursts, then threw grenades. It wasn’t enough to keep the Bringers from advancing. They were almost at the front entrance when Buffy started to fire at them again, and the bomb one of them carried exploded anyway, blowing a hole into the door.

“They can’t have unlimited explosives, or we’d be dead already from the first bomb. We’ll have to hold on!” Xander yelled.

“We don’t have unlimited ammo either!” Buffy shouted back. Suddenly she froze for a split second. “They’ve gotten into the house, in the back!”

She was about to stand up, but Xander put a hand on her shoulder. “You keep firing at the front. We’ll handle the inside. Rick! Grab your Ack Pack!”

Castle nodded, shaking. He was going to die. He was going to be blown up in the house. Or burn to death when someone hit his tank. Alexis would be an orphan. He cursed as he picked up the flamethrower and slung it on his back. He’d take as many of them with him as he could.

The house was filled with smoke that burned in the throat and lungs. Rick and Xander rushed through the main bedroom. Willow and Rupert were chanting a spell there, Rick didn’t know what it would do, while Mary stood guard.

“They're inside!” Xander shouted, and Rick’s ex-wife stood up, following them.

“Just like old times!” Rick grinned at Mary.

She shook her head, crossbow ready. They had reached the stairs when another explosion shook the house, and dust and smoke billowed out from the kitchen. “They’re worse than Buffy in the kitchen!” Xander joked, then fired at the ragged figure coming at them.

The demon fell down, but two more climbed over it before it had stopped moving. Castle set both of them afire. Nine shots left. He had the sudden urge to sing “Ten Little Indians”. Mary shot a bolt at another.

Half a dozen Bringers rushed into the hall now, from the front and the back. Two were chasing a mini-Slayer, Molly, who had lost her gun, or ran out of ammo, and was slashing at them with a sword. Castle couldn’t fry them without roasting Molly too. He shot at another demon, closer to the stairs. Xander downed another from the kitchen. Mary rushed down the stairs, slashing at a bent over demon, charging towards Molly.

Before Castle’s ex-wife reached the mini-slayer, one demon impaled itself on her sword, and trapped the blade. The other grabbed Molly before she could back off, biting her throat. The Slayer’s scream was cut off. Mary stabbed the demon and it let go, but the Watcher had been too late to save Molly. The mini-slayer fell to her knees, trying to breath through a ripped throat, drowning in her own blood. She was staring, pleading, at them, but there was nothing they could do for her.

Castle looked away, cursing under his breath, and fired another two bursts of flame at the kitchen and front gate area. Six shots left. Mary was getting flanked by another group of demons. She fell back to the stairs while Xander and Castle shoot at them and set them on fire. Rick didn’t want to think about the Slayers that had been on the ground floor. They had to have been overrun. Just like he’d be soon.

A bringer leapt up and tried to climb the side of the stairs. Mary slashed at his hands, then kicked him down. Xander threw a grenade into a room on the other side, then drew his axe. He had to have run out of ammo, then. Rick kept firing, roasting half a dozen more before his tank ran dry. Breathing was getting more and more difficult.

He let the Ack Pack drop to the ground and hefted his sword. “None shall pass!”

“‘Tis but a scratch!” Xander answered.

Mary stared at them. She had never liked Monty Python. Even though she was British!

Before Castle could make another comment, the entire entrance hall seemed to blow up and the stairs collapsed under their feet, sending the three of them tumbling down on the destroyed ground floor. Rick landed hard on rubble and a dead demon, and when he tried to get up his left arm hurt too much to move. Next to him Mary screamed, her leg impaled on a metal poker. Xander was on his knees, axe in hand, but half a dozen Bringers surrounded them.

Up close their mutilated faces, with their eyes carved out and sewn shut, looked even more horrible than Castle remembered. He had lost his sword in the fall, and he was groping around for something, anything to defend himself with. He only found a piece of rock before the demons moved.

Xander slashed at one, Mary tried to fend of another with her blade, and Rick threw his rock. As last stands went, it was pathetic.

Another figure suddenly came out the smoke filling the room, pouncing on the demons. Castle had never been so happy - never been happy at all - to see a vampire. Spike must have survived in the basement, guarding the sewers. He was wielding a fire axe and split the head of a bringer, then disemboweled another. Xander had downed his opponent in the meantime, and the others turned to face the vampire. While Spike fought them with the savagery and skill that had earned him a place among the Scourge of Europe, Xander pulled Mary off the metal poker and Rick looked around for his sword. He didn’t find it, but a mangled piece of wood would serve as a makeshift club.

The four of them were turning to face the next Bringers when suddenly a bright light filled the room, blinding them all for a moment. Castle heard Spike scream in surprise and fear, but the vampire’s reaction was drowned out by the roars and hisses from the bringers. Blinking, the author could see the demons stumble, then turn to flee.

From above, he heard “They’re fleeing! You did it, Willow!”, followed by a ragged cheer, and more gunshots. Rick took a bit to realize that he wouldn’t die right then. That the demons were retreating. But when he did he turned to Xander. “Is this the moment when we complain about them getting away?”

Xander, bleeding from several wounds, chuckled. “That, or we complain about kill stealing witches.”

Spike and Mary were staring at them and shaking their heads in disbelief. Rick didn’t care. He simply laughed with Xander, laughed until the vampire and his ex-wife joined in.

*****

**Sunnydale, Februar 2003**

Half of the villa was rubble, the rest ruined. The garage had fared a bit better, but looked like it would be condemned by any building inspector anyway. Although it had saved the life of Faith, who had climbed - or maybe jumped, Rick wasn’t sure such a feat was beyond either of the two oldest Slayers - on its roof. “Why don’t I feel as if we’ve won a victory?” He sighed.

“Because you didn’t grow up on a Hellmouth,” Xander said.

“It was a rhetorical question.” He frowned at the younger man

“That’s what people say when they don’t like the answers to their questions.” Xander grinned, then grew serious. “The butcher’s bill is not as bad as I feared at first. We lost Molly, Chloé, Amanda and Annabelle. Mary and Anya are wounded, but seem stable.”

“No wounded among the Slayers?” Rick asked.

“Nothing that won’t be healed in a day or so. Shannon’s the worst off.”

Rick noded. Most of the dead but Annabelle he hadn’t really known, and Annabelle he only remembered well because she had been a bit of a fan, and had talked a few times with him.

“We’ll have to leave, though. The house can’t be held against another attack, and we need to get the wounded to a hospital,” Xander continued.

“Outside Sunnydale.” Even if the hospital in Sunnydale had been safe, it would be deserted by now, Rick assumed.

“Yes.” Xander kicked a pebble away, then looked at the crater in the middle of the road. “We can get the cars over that, with a bit of Slayer elbow grease, planks and Willow’s magic. Then one group goes to the hospital, the rest go and get the scythe from whatever monster is guarding it.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Rick didn’t know why Xander was running it past him - he was the outsider here.

“You look a bit banged up as well.” Ah, that was the reason.

He didn’t quite look at Xander. “I’m fine. My shoulder was fixed. It hurts a bit, still, but it won’t slow me down.” Much.

“Someone has to protect them, in case some Bringers track them down.” Xander wasn’t giving up.

“Shannon can do that better than I can. And she can get her wounds looked at there too. It’s not as if I have missed the Slayers’ tendencies to claim they are fine despite evidence to the contrary,” Rick countered. “Besides, I’d rather not go with my ex-wife. She’s really cranky when she’s wounded.”

“Worse than PMS?”

“Yes.”

Xander winced, then left. Rick heard him call for Buffy and Dawn. By any rights, Rick should be helping out, doing something. But that had been the biggest, most dangerous battle he had ever seen, or taken part in. He probably was shell-shocked. Or something like it. He’d have to use such a scene in his next book too. Without the bombs, though.

If he survived, of course. At least Mary would be safe, relatively. Alexis wouldn’t be an orphan. Although she might wish she was, if Martha couldn’t keep Mary in check.

*****

Two hours later, Rick was reconsidering his decision to stay. He was hiding in a bush behind a ditch, facing an old mansion. Sturdy walls, lots of spots to hide and ambush people. “Is it just me, or does this scene look familiar? We’re missing our own army of expendable demon suicide bombers, though.”

Buffy, Faith and Xander laughed. None of the minis did. Rupert muttered something. Rick shook his head. “Seriously, what are the odds it’ll be as trapped as our house was, or more?”

“If it’s a trap, it’ll be one for our enemy!” Buffy said, cradling her M60. Rick had to admit that she was getting a bit too attached to that. But he wouldn’t be as stupid as to mention it. Only a fool would try to get between a Slayer and her weapon, so that was clearly up to Xander.

“We don’t need to get inside. We just need to get the scythe, which is somewhere below the mansion,” Willow explained. Again. The Slayers were quite a bloodthirsty bunch though, and wanted to storm the mansion and massacre everything inside with their bare hands.

“It’s an axe, not a scythe,” Buffy said, not for the first time. “I know an axe when I see it, even in a dream.”

“It’s referred to as a scythe in the old texts. Its actual name is ‘mʔ’,” Rupert corrected his Slayer.

“We don’t have to storm the place at all. We keep it bottled up and go underground to get the scythe, even if we have to dig it out,” Xander cut in.

“Axe.”

“Mʔ.”

Rick rubbed his temple. Compared to the headache listening to the bickering was causing, the pain from his bruises and shoulder was nothing. His family would never believe that he was the most responsible man left in Sunnydale! “We don’t even know if there is anyone in there. Isn’t the scythe protected from evil or so?” He ignored Buffy muttering “Axe!” as everyone else did.

“Well, theoretically, but the presence of the Hellmouth might have weakened those enough for demons to reside nearby.” Rupert polished his glasses.

“We could wait until it’s dark, and then send in Spike as a scout,” Xander said.

“Oh, really, Xander? I’ll go take a look myself!” Buffy rolled her eyes at her friend, then went up and started towards the mansion in a crouch.

Xander cursed, then turned to the rest. “Stay here, I’ll cover her!” Both soon reached the building, and disappeared inside.

Rick and the others waited for ten tense minutes, until Buffy appeared again, waving. “It’s empty!” she yelled.

“That could be the First,” Willow looked at the blonde with narrowed eyes. “I don’t see Xander.”

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know. We can’t just shoot her, if it’s Buffy, she’ll be hurt.”

It turned out that waiting until Buffy got annoyed enough to come down to the waiting group was enough to solve the problem. Getting touched by everyone didn’t improve her mood though. Xander, joining her, was pretty much tackled by a few minis, but he seemed to enjoy that. At least he joked as if he did.

But with the threat of a trap removed, the scythe/axe/mʔ-recovery mission could continue, more or less smoothly. Faith and a bunch of minis set up a perimeter, as Xander called it, around the mansion, the rest went down into the sewers and other tunnels beneath the mansion. Somewhere down there, in a veritable maze, was the relic they sought.

Rick would be going down with them, since he was not quite as good a shot with a rifle as any Slayer, mini or not, and couldn’t fire a minimi as if it was a machine pistol either. It wasn’t a very comforting reason for his male ego, but at least Mary’d be jealous when he’d tell her of the mission.

*****

“Relax, Buffy - I know those tunnels like the back of my hand. Used them to get around during daylight all the time, back before I got chipped.” Spike sounded as confident as before the first dead end he had led them to.

“Couldn’t they have fixed you at the same time?” Xander snarled.

“Watch it, soldier boy!” The vampire turned and bared his teeth at the young man.

“If you two don’t shut up and get on with the recovering, I’ll fix both of you! With a spoon!” Buffy growled at them until they relented, and focused on the mission again. Rick personally doubted anyone had still an idea where they were, but the group was already tense enough, he’d rather not make it worse.

“It’s in this direction!” Willow pointed at a wall, a glowing crystal in her other hand.

Buffy went ahead and knocked on the wall. “It sounds a bit more hollow than the last one.” She beamed at Spike, who groaned while he stepped up, pickaxe in hand.

“Why it’s always the vampire who has to do the menial labor? I am not the only supernaturally strong being here, you know!” he said, in a rather whiny voice in Rick’s opinion.

“You’re the only male supernaturally strong being, though,” Buffy said. “Therefore, it’s your duty to do the menial work. Besides, dust would ruin my pants.”

Faced with everyone nodding in agreement, Spike grumbled, and started to tear the wall down. It took him a while, but finally, a room was revealed. As soon as he caught a glimpse, Rick gasped: “Shut the front door! They actually did the sword in the stone routine? What’s this, Excalibur 2.0?” He stared at the weapon half-buried in a block of stone. “If I would use that gimmick in a novel, my critics would crucify me!”

“It’s not a sword, it’s an axe!” Buffy huffed at him, then stepped forward.

“The mʔ actually predates the Arthurian legends by a few millennia at least.” Rupert had to stress the name, of course.

Buffy huffed again, then grabbed the heft of the thing, and pulled. The weapon came free as if it was just resting on the stone block, and she lifted it above her head with an enraptured smile. Glancing around, Rick noticed that all the minis with them shared the expression. He had thought they liked weapons before, but this was a whole new level of worship...

Buffy closed her eyes, shivering, then took a deep breath before looking at the group. “The First won’t know what hit it when I strike the bitch down with this!”

Rick wished he had worn ear protection when the minis started shouting their agreement. The noise level in the small cave was deafening.

*****

About an hour and three disagreements about the right path to take later, the group had found their way back to the surface.

“Hi guys! We’re back with the axe!” Buffy yelled, presenting it to the rest of the Slayers. Again they seemed enraptured, but once they recovered, they stared at Rick with a very odd, and quite scary expression. Especially Faith, who marched straight towards him.

“Don’t move!” she growled

Rick froze. “Yes, ma’am! Ow!”

The rogue Slayer - or former rogue Slayer - grabbed his arm, squeezing. “You’re not the First.”

“No, I am not. Could you let go now? It’s a tad painful.” Rick winced.

“You’re not dead either.”

“I think I’d have noticed that. What is going on?”

Faith dragged more than led him to a body covered with a blanket. That was when Rick noticed the signs of a firefight all around him - and a few dozen dead Bringers. He forgot about the demons though when Faith kicked the blanket away and he was staring at a face that looked like his. Well, apart from the bullet holes in it. And he wasn’t missing the back of his head either. And he certainly would never be caught dead with such a horrible hairstyle. And the nose was not right, or so he thought. Jaw’s a bit too strong, maybe.

Still… “First the sword in the stone, now the evil twin… isn’t there any cliché the First won’t be using?”

“It’s the First Evil, what did you expect? Respect of intellectual property?” Xander, like everyone else, was staring at the dead man, who had apparently been the leader of the Bringers, as well as supernaturally tough, according to Faith. Not tough enough to survive in the crossfire of half a dozen machine guns, though.

“I’d have expected a bit more class, at least!” Rick shook his head. “I can’t use that in my novels either!”

And everyone was looking at him with a weird expression again.

*****

**Sunnydale, February 2003**

“For the last time, the First cannot create physical doppelgangers! If it could, it wouldn’t have chosen such a dorky haircut, and even worse clothes for me!” Rick Castle was getting a tad annoyed at the glances he still was getting. Honestly!

“It’s not that. Everyone’s just wondering how you’ll write us in your next book,” Buffy said.

“Huh?” Castle hadn’t thought the blonde Slayer had ever read any of his books. Dawn had been teasing her about her lack of ‘readage’ for days after his arrival.

“Yes! It’s a big worry for us. What if your descriptions are unflattering? What if my lines are dorky?”

To his horror, Castle saw a lot of the Slayers around him nod. “We’re facing the First Evil, and you worry about your portrayal in a novel that has yet to be written, and where I will be changing so many things that it’ll be unrecognisable anyway?” He wasn’t certain he’d closed his mouth after finishing.

“Exactly! What if the readers think we’d be wearing outdated outfits, or the wrong kind of shoes?”

Castle was pretty certain right then that the world was doomed.

*****

It had taken a dozen Slayers and Spike several hours to break through all the concrete covering the Seal of Danzalthar. Xander had managed to hold out for an hour before commenting how proud he was of his work. At which point he had been drafted into helping out as well by a disgruntled Buffy. Rick, smarter, more handsome and more experienced with women, had wisely not said anything, and therefore was spared the physical labour.

The plan to end the first was quite simple. A ‘Buffy-plan’, as Xander put it, but he hadn’t come up with anything better than ‘open the seal, go down, kill everything until the First shows, kill it with the axe, done!’ either.

They had added a bit to it, though. The Slayers would go down, but the rest would be ready to help, and guard their back. Willow with her magic, Xander, Rick, Rupert and Spike with more mundane weapons. Simple, if not for Dawn, who had driven back to Sunnydale with Shannon after the latter had checked herself out of the hospital. The resulting screaming row between the Summers sisters had resulted in Castle thanking god that Alexis was an only child. Now they had a sixteen year old girl to guard as well. And a principal to watch - Wood hadn’t left, and Rick didn’t entirely trust the man. Anyone would have agreed to a truce when faced with over a dozen Slayers. They could have waited for more Slayers to arrive, but the group had decided to strike before the First recovered its army of demons. They’d find out soon if that had been the right decision.

The die was cast now. The seal uncovered. One by one, the Slayers slashed their lower arms, and let their blood drop on the seal. Now that was a scene Rick could use in a book! On second thought, he’d better not use it - telling people how to unseal a Hellmouth was not a smart idea.

With a creaking noise, the seal broke up, crumbling as the earth split, revealing the very Mouth of Hell. Castle shivered at the sight. There was a small, narrow path spiraling down - or up, from Hell’s perspective.

“No tentacles. Let’s go!” Buffy ordered, and the Slayers started to climb down into hell. They looked grim, but also excited. Looking forward to do battle.

Once the last girl had disappeared from view, Rick walked up and peered down. Below him, the Slayers were still climbing down, but he could make out a bright, flickering spot in the center. “Now I can claim to have seen Hell!” he said when he turned back to the group. A few chuckled. Mary would have scolded him. Another thing he had over her.

“And now comes the worst part: The waiting!” Xander said, and sat down. Rick was just about to join him, when Dawn came rushing in. When had the girl split from them, anyway? “Bringers! Bringers are attacking!” she yelled.

Rick glared at Xander. “That’s your fault!”

“How?” The other man was already on halfway to the stairs.

“You claimed waiting would be worst!” Rick readjusted the Ack Pack on his back and followed him, with Spike at his side. “Don’t let Dawn get away again!” the author yelled back at Rupert and Willow. “Buffy will kill us all if that happens!”

“I knew attending school would be the death of me one day!” Rick muttered when he saw a dozen demons climb over the remains of the main entrance.

“Technically, we’re trespassing, not attending!” Xander snarked, then started shooting. One Bringer was hit in the head, and it fell down, causing two more to stumble. Rick set all three on fire.

“You two are long-lost siblings, aren’t you?” Spike snarled at them. “Watch the flames instead of cracking jokes! I don’t fancy getting barbecued!” The vampire leapt ahead, decapitating one bringer with a blow of his axe and disemboweling another with the backstroke.

More demons were coming though, and not just from the front. “We have to fall back or we’ll get flanked!” Xander yelled, and Spike disengaged, just in time to avoid getting cut off. Rick torched the first group following them, and the next, while they retreated further. Or fell back, as Xander called it.

Rick was about to torch the next group when the ceiling above him came down, followed by a Bringer. Weighed down with the flamethrower on his back, he didn’t manage to move out of the way in time.

*****

When he came to, he was not where he remembered falling down. It looked like a hallway. Next to him lay Spike, or what was left of him. Only the fact the vampire hadn’t turned to dust told Castle that he was still alive… undead… whatever. He wasn’t conscious though. There was no sign of Xander, but someone had to have dragged or carried them to this spot, and laid them out so Rick wouldn’t choke on his own tongue. Whoever had done it had gotten their weapons too, and placed them next to them.

Rolling over, Rick yelled in pain - his leg, the same that was already bruised all over, was bent in a way legs shouldn’t be. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while, so he grabbed the nozzle of his Ack Pack and hoped that there was still fuel inside it - he didn’t remember how many shots he had already fired. Maybe he should better hope that no enemy came near them.

He probably had a concussion as well, now that he thought of it. Contrary to Martha’s slander, he wasn’t usually quite that scatter-brained.

He couldn’t hear any sounds of fighting, and the hallway wasn’t on fire, so … did that mean they had won? Or was the apocalypse delayed due to a scheduling mixup? He chuckled at his own attempt at a joke. Definitely a concussion. That meant he shouldn’t fall asleep. Hard to anyway, with how much pain he was in. So, a broken leg was a good thing… that explained the ‘break a leg’ saying, at last!

He chuckled again, then stopped when he heard footsteps coming closer. Gripping his flamethrower, he tensed. Closer. Closer. Turning the corner…

It was the principal, looking slightly battered himself. “Hello Mister Wood. Sorry for loitering in your school, but I find myself unable to leave.” He nodded at the man, lowering the nozzle. “What happened? Did we win?”

“The school’s still standing, the Slayers are still in hell, but the Bringers have been destroyed and the seal is safe. Mister Harris is ‘securing a transport’ as he put it, which means he’s stealing a school bus, and I am patrolling the hallways, just in case we missed a demon.”

Rick smiled, relieved. “Everyone safe so far then? Good.” Then he noticed the stake in the man’s hand, and his smile froze on his face. “Well, you can see, this hallway’s in safe hands. No demons to destroy here. You can go check the locker rooms now.”

“I beg to differ, Mister Castle.” Wood smiled. “There’s one demon left to destroy. A demon that has destroyed my family.”

“Didn’t we get over that? He’s one of the good guys now. Besides, killing him when he fought on our side, and got almost killed for it… that’d make you the textbook backstabbing douchebag. You don’t want to be that kind of man, Wood.” Rick lifted the nozzle and aimed it at the Principal.

“Figures you’d come when I can’t defend myself, Wood. Your mum’d be ashamed.” Spike apparently had regained consciousness some time ago, and was, as usual, not helping his own cause. At all. At least Wood was ignoring him, focusing on Rick. Or his flamethrower. It was hard to tell, even without a concussion.

“I know you, Mister Castle. Or is that Mister Rodgers? You’ve been a Watcher for a decade. As a chronicler, you know what this monster has done. It killed my mother!” Wood almost yelled the last sentence.

“That was the First talking, you know that. It wasn’t your mother!” Rick wondered how often the First had appeared to Wood.

“That doesn’t matter. I know he murdered her. The filthy vampire is even wearing her cloak as a trophy!”

“Told you, you can get her cloak back, if you want, Wood! S’not much of it left now, though,” Spike mumbled, still not helping.

Rick met Wood’s eyes. “I won’t let you kill him. Not now, not like this.”

“You cannot stop me without killing me, not in your condition. Would you truly kill a man trying to avenge his mother, a Slayer, for this beast? For a monster who has killed tens of thousands?” Wood took a step closer to Spike. “I don’t think so.”

“Wood, stop it!” Rick tracked him with the nozzle.

“No.” Wood shook his head.

Rick pulled the trigger.

*****

“First the sword in the stone. Then the evil twin. And now the evil lair crumbling for no structural reason? God damn you!” Castle cursed!

“Told you, First Evil!” Xander said. “No imagination at all!”

“No wonder it was killed by a blonde then.” Castle hoped Buffy hadn’t heard that. He was still blaming his concussion, of course.

For two wounded men who had been carried by a bunch of girls to the dubious safety of a school bus driven by a sixteen year old girl who hadn’t gotten her license yet, Xander and himself were holding up well, or so Castle thought. He still had a concussion, after all. That was probably the reason why he was not freaking out at the fact that they were just barely outrunning the giant sinkhole Sunnydale was turning into. He could see the street disappear into the growing hole just a few yards behind them. The street, and all the houses on it. It looked like the Hellmouth was closing up for good this time.

At least he could use that for his next novel.

*****

 


	4. Welcome to the 12th Precinct

**The Hamptons, March 2003**

“... and then he came in, soaked to the bone, and said ‘Mom! The fish are trying to escape!’”

Sitting in the salon, Richard Castle tried to ignore the giggling and laughter from the living room. He wasn’t having much success, not with his deepest, dirtiest secrets being revealed next door. At least listening to the banter was better than dwelling on the dead. Like Wood.

Still, in hindsight, inviting the whole ‘Scoobie Gang’ and all Slayers to the Hamptons after their victory over the First Evil had been a mistake. The Hamptons weren’t exactly a great place to be in Winter or early Spring.

On the other hand, his house was big, so even without a beach to go swimming to, not everyone was crowding Castle while his broken leg was healing. Not everyone, just the Scoobies. Which by now seemed to include Spike as well. Which was kind of a drawback. Maybe he should have looked into renting a house for a few of his guests. Or for himself.

Then again, Mary was still in the hospital, and so was the capitalist viking raider from hell. Which meant that Xander was often absent from Castle’s house, visiting Anya at the hospital. So, no one tried to outsnark him. Apart from his mother, of course.

Which was the main reason inviting his comrades in arms might not have been his best idea to date. Martha Rodgers meeting the Summers sisters was an event best observed from a distance. Not up close, and unable to run away due to his crutches.

He heard the door open and turned his head. “Alexis! How’s your mother doing?”

Castle’s daughter winced as she came up to him.

“That well? Maybe I should have left her in L.A….” Rick said, then opened his arms.

His little girl huffed, but sat down in his lap and hugged him. “Dad! You shouldn’t joke about that. It’s a miracle neither of you died!”

“One day when you’re older, I’ll tell you all about it, and you’ll see that it wasn’t a miracle, but careful planning and me being awesome.” Rick was still hoping that the Scoobies would have a positive effect on Alexis, who was sometimes far too serious for her age, but so far she had proven to be rather resistant to the insanity-inducing antics of the gang.

“Or I can go and ask Spike. He doesn’t think I am a little girl.”

Rick gaped at her. “Alexis!”

She giggled. “Just kidding, Dad. He said he won’t tell me until I am old enough either.”

Rick pondered if he could lock the vampire up in his basement for the rest of their stay. For some reason, Spike had taken Castle ‘burning Wood - do you get it?’ to save him as a sign that they were the best of friends, and extended that to his family. And Alexis, for all the lessons she had received, was fascinated by the vampire. Joy. At least Mary would be more upset about this development than Castle was. “Alexis! I know you are very mature for your age, but some things you are not ready for. Stories from Spike about his time in Sunnydale, New York, well, anywhere, are some of those things. There’s a reason everyone tells him to shut up whenever he starts.”

“I thought that was because most of them are embarrassing for the rest of the gang,” Alexis answered in that innocent tone of hers that Rick had taken years to see through.

“That’s true as well. The Scoobies are a lively bunch.” And insane most of the time.

“Oh, yes. Dawn told me all about how insanity runs in her family.” Alexis nodded, sagely. “Spike babysat her, did you know?”

That explained a lot. Maybe Castle should worry about more bad influences than just Spike. And hope Rupert would straighten out the Council’s affairs in London soon so the Slayers could relocate to London. Or to Cleveland, to guard the Hellmouth there. Rick really should have been suspicious when his British colleague had decided to head straight back instead of recuperating some time on Long Island. “Of course I know, Honey.”

“Good. We’re going shopping tomorrow. Buffy said I need a more fashionable wardrobe. Dawn said Buffy’s usually a blonde, but knows her fashion and shopping. It’ll be fun!” His darling little angel beamed at him, and Castle had a sudden and terrifying vision of Alexis wearing the kind of clothes he had seen in Sunnydale.

“Ah… I’ll better come with you then. You’ll need adult supervision.”

Alexis frowned at him and shook her head. “No, no, Dad. You need your rest, everyone said so. Besides, we’ll be with the Slayer - how much more adult supervision would we need? We’ll be totally safe!”

With the Slayer and her supernatural senses in the next room, Castle couldn’t tell her how wrong she was. “OK, Honey.” he smiled weakly. “Just consider your mother’s opinion too, before you buy anything.”

“Oh, I will, Dad! Just as you always told me: If Mum is against it, wear it! Or do it!”

Rick should have known that those words would one day come back to haunt him.

*****

**New York, November 2003**

For a demon bar, ‘Clark’s’ looked almost normal from the outside. Only the bouncer’s size - over seven feet hunched over - hinted at the true nature of the bar. Richard Castle drove his BMW Z3 Roadster - James Bond’s car! - past the entrance and parked a street away.

“Should be fun,” Vi, Violet O’Malley, said, closing the passenger door and checking her weapons.

“They might have heard of the changes already. Maybe they won’t make a fuss.” Castle grabbed his own weapons. He wished Willow would figure out a way to shrink his flamethrower, but he had to make do with a compact shotgun and a short sword. Highlander had lied to him - a coat was not enough to hide a longer sword. Not when you wanted to move in it.

Vi, New York’s resident Slayer as of two weeks ago, pouted. As all of the minis - not that anyone other than Faith and Xander was calling them that any more - she was almost always looking forward to fighting or hunting. Rick, now the official Watcher for New York and environs, sighed. “Remember, we’re here for information about the bone marrow murders. Not to bust heads.”

“Yes.” Vi’s sullen answer left no doubt that she would take any excuse to start a fight. Well, putting the fear of the Slayer into the local demon population would be a good thing.

“Cheer up! One way or another, you’ll get to stomp some demon butt tonight.” Rick patted her back while they walked over to the bar entrance.

“That’s not the kind of bar for you.” The bouncer tried to bar their way.

Rick rolled his eyes. Sure, he didn’t look or feel particularly dangerous, but Vi was spoiling for a fight, and even he could see the predator in the girl. He glanced at her and nodded. Five seconds later, the bouncer was down for the count, and the wall would need some repairs.

The Slayer and Watcher entered, and like in a cheap Western, the bar fell silent. Rick smiled with more confidence than he felt - but not that much more. After Sunnydale, normal, non-hellmouthy demons, as Buffy would say, kind of tended to be less impressive. “Good evening, gentlemen. I am the resident Watcher, and this is the resident Slayer. She’s spoiling for a fight, and the big lug outside didn’t really last long enough to satisfy her, so don’t make her mad.”

Vi giggled. He really should check his speeches for double-entendres before making them. But the demons probably thought she was giggling at them. Rick didn’t spot any Lei-Ach Demons among the guests, so with Vi at his back, he strode towards the bar. One Ano-Movic Demon even jumped up from his seat and scrambled away when they got too close to him. It felt good.

The bartender, a Loose-Skinned Demon, trembled slightly, but didn’t make any threatening movement. Vi had to look like their worst nightmare, Rick thought. He leaned on the bartop, and gave him his best Clint Eastwoody - he really needed to watch his language, California was contagious - smile. “A couple of dead people have been found, with the marrow of their bones missing. You know something about that?”

The demon shook his head, the folds of skin shaking and wobbling. “No, I keep to my bar. I don’t know anything about bones.”

“Are you sure? You haven’t seen or heard of any Lei-Ach Demon recently? Or know someone who has? The longer we stay inside, the more likely my pretty partner here will go to town on your guests. She’s been a bit bored, since Sunnydale.” Rick kept smiling as the bartender started to tremble and his eyes went over to a table in the corner. Rick followed the gaze, and spotted three demons, one of them a Brachen Demon, the two others Fyarls.

Vi was already moving towards them, a feral grin on her face. The Brachen ducked under the table and the two Fyarls charged her, roaring what was either a challenge or an obscenity in their language.

While his Slayer easily demolished the two demons, Castle kept an eye out for anyone else wanting to be a punching bag. No one did. He slapped a twenty on the bartop and nodded at the bartender. “For the damages.”

Rick was tempted to order a drink too, but he knew what kind of things demons ate, and he’d rather not discover that that extended to drinks as well. Besides, Vi was already throttling the Brachen demon.

“I’ve got an address and a name.” Vi smiled at him, wiping some blood from her gloves.

Rick nodded at her, then smiled at the remaining guests. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Vi rolled her eyes at him. The girl had no respect for her Watcher - that had been a classic line!

*****

**New York, September 2008**

“Rupert, I am very grateful for the offer, but it would be a waste of time - your valuable time, seeing as you’re the Head of the Watchers Council - to proofread ‘Facing the Old One’. I’ve got editors for that.” Richard Castle rolled his eyes while he listened to his friend on the phone. “And yes, before you ask, they are Americans, but they do speak proper English, and not Californian.”

“I would say that proper English and American is a contradiction in terms,” Rupert said, and Castle laughed at the ribbing, “but I was more concerned with the possible risk of revealing information our enemies could use against us.”

“Rupert, trust me: I’ve been writing books based on true accounts for a long time now. You’ve seen my books yourself. I am quite certain that I haven’t left any sensitive information in a recognizable form.” The novel was set in medieval times, to start, and the tactics carefully changed from effective to dramatic.

“Still, it would be no bother…” The English Watcher wasn’t giving up easily.

“Ask him about the outfits Branda wears!” Buffy’s voice could be heard through the phone.

Castle rubbed his forehead. “Loremaster Randolph and Vampire Hunter Branda are very loosely based on existing people, and all my test readers love them!” he said, more than a bit testily. “Oh, I’ve got a visitor at the door, so I have to cut this call short. Terribly sorry, and all that.” He hung up. If they knew that his test readers expected a romance because of ‘all the sexual tension between Ran and Bran’, they would probably take the next flight to New York.

“Hi Castle!” Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley sauntered into his office, making a show out of peering at the various vampire hunting paraphernalia mounted on the walls or presented in display cases, before hanging her denim jacket on the closest sword hilt.

“Hello Vi. What’s up on the slaying front?” Castle placed his smartphone back in his pocket.

“The usual.” Vi made a dismissive gesture. “Did you add a new stake to your collection?”

“I see that my subtle way of asking when your report of the Central Park incident will be finished needs some work,” Rick stated dryly.

The redhead had the grace to blush a bit. “You’ll have it this evening.” She sat down on his desk, crossing her jeans-clad legs and picked up the silver cross serving as a paperweight to fiddle with it.

Castle raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to say or ask what she actually had come into his office for. He knew she was stalling - Rick had come to know his Slayer very well over the years. Vi was part of his family, actually, almost like another daughter, and hadn’t some papers speculated about that!  

The redhead - one of three important and at times infuriating redheads in his life, four if he’d count Mary - nibbled on her lower lip and avoided his eyes. It couldn’t be love trouble; she talked about that stuff with Alexis and Martha. And she wouldn’t be hesitating to talk about Slayer business, so… Castle groaned and closed his eyes. “Not another discussion about Victoria, please!”

“But Rick! Everyone will know she’s based on me. She has to look great in the book, or the others will think I disappointed you!”

“She’s got red hair, and is a girl. She could be based on anyone, even Alexis!” Rick responded.

“You’ve based a character on me? Dad, how could you!”

Rick looked up and saw Alexis standing in the door. “Err…”

“You said you didn’t use your family as models when I asked!” Martha said, coming up behind her granddaughter.

Castle covered his face with his hands. He simply couldn’t win in this household!

*****

**New York, March 2009**

As far as parties went, it was a good one. Lots of fans, lots of pretty female fans, a few members of the press, good catering, and themed waitressing staff. The launch of the latest ‘Vampire Hunter’ book, ‘Facing the Old One’, was off to a good start.

Richard Castle was glad and relieved - writing that book, based on the events in Sunnydale, had taken him years, in between other novels, and that hadn’t (just) been because every Slayer and Scoobie involved in that desperate struggle had tried to ‘help’ him write it. No, writing had been difficult because of all the memories it brought up. Killing Bringers, seeing Slayers die, facing the First Evil, burning Wood alive… none of his books had been inspired by events he had been personally and very closely involved in before this.

But it was done now. Over. He had even gotten some sort of closure out of it. Or so he hoped. He passed a group of fans reading the books they had just bought, grabbed a drink from a passing waitress wearing fake and sexy leather armor, and joined his family at the bar for a bit of a break from mingling.

“Hi Dad!” Alexis beamed at him, and raised her drink at him. A soft drink, of course - Alexis was still the most mature and responsible of his now extended family.

“Hello kiddo,” Martha greeted him, but kept checking the dwindling stacks of ‘Facing the Old One’. “Sales are great, at least here. There are no critics out yet.”

Vi just waved, keeping an eye on the room. The Slayer was relishing the opportunity to wear weapons openly without anyone making a fuss, even if her clothes were closer to what Faith usually wore than what the medieval ‘Vampire Hunters’ were supposed to don before battle. Rick still hoped Alexis wouldn’t take clues from her ‘big sister’ when it came to clothes.

“You know we’ve got crosses all over, and holy water in half the soda bottles. The odds of any demon sneaking in are almost nil.” Castle shook his head, bemused, as he ordered a drink for himself. There were no ‘vampire themed’ snacks or drinks, of course. His fans knew what kind of demons vampires were, and didn’t pine for them. Or shouldn’t. And Vampire Hunter Branda wouldn’t be seducing or getting seduced by any undead either.

“I’m just staying in character.” Vi growled, then stuck her tongue out at him.

“If you were you’d be wearing the leather outfit of Victoria.” Castle corrected her.

“Nope. I’d not be able to weather all the ‘Victoria’s Secret’ jokes.” Vi glared at him.

Castle assumed she had her suspicions about who exactly had thought of that particular idea. So he simply nodded, and took a sip from his drink to cover the pause.

“So, signed many chests today?” Vi asked, a bit too casually.

“Did you make a bet on that again? And are you trying to cheat, again?” Rick narrowed his eyes.

“Maybe…” Vi suddenly tensed, then whispered. “One o’clock, brunette, tall. She’s carrying and asking for you.”

Castle followed his Slayer’s subtle nod, and spotted the woman. Striking, tall, body… rivaling a Slayer’s, stylish but sensible clothes, apart from the high heels, would be hell to fight in them for anyone but a Slayer, and she had an attitude about her…

“Bet she’s a demon,” Vi muttered next to him.

“Wouldn’t you have sensed that?” Rick shot back, and then the woman had reached them. Him.

“Richard Castle?”

“In the flesh. How can I help you?” Castle used his most charming smile on her. Next to him, Vi shifted a bit, not quite flanking the woman.

The brunette reached into her jacket, and Castle tensed up too. Until he was staring at a badge. “I am Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. I need to ask you a few questions about a murder.”

*****

Castle stared at the pictures. It wasn’t the blood, or the gore, but the set up. The runes, and the altar. And the body.

“Do you recognize the scene, Mister Castle?” Detective Beckett’s voice stayed professional.

“The sacrifice from ‘Warlock’. Someone actually created the scene,” Castle said. His mind was racing. Was this a delusional individual, or something more? Could the demon he had taken his inspiration from have survived the Slayer in the 16th century, or was this a cult trying to bring him back? But why would they use his carefully made-up ceremony, instead of the original? Maybe they hadn’t access to the real grimoire, and were trying for sympathetic magic?

“Yes. Someone is very fanatic about your work. Do you have any fans who seem obsessed with that particular book?”

“My publisher screens my fan mail before it reaches me. I am rather certain that a letter from whoever is deranged enough to commit such a crime would be sorted out.” And passed on to him and the Council.

“We’ll have to go over the mail then, Mister Castle.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll call the publisher.” He looked up at her. “Can I keep the pictures? The ones without the body, I mean. It’s like… well, as disturbing as it is, it would make a great conversation piece. Someone actually took my novels seriously!” He needed the pictures to start his own investigation.

“No, Mister Castle. That’s evidence.” It wasn’t his best line - it was late, or early, and he was a bit drunk, but still, he didn’t think he deserved quite that glare. Not from such a striking woman.

“Oh. Can I leave now? My family must be getting anxious.” He tried to appear innocent and tired. Just a harmless, if eccentric author.

“Aren’t they used to that, by now? You’ve got quite a history with law enforcement.” The detective flipped through a file.

“No convictions!” Rick said, reflexively. And it wasn’t that much - the Council didn’t have to pull him out of that kind of trouble more than half a dozen times, since Sunnydale.

“Sometimes together with your ‘friend’ who is cosplaying as a ‘vampire hunter’ in the wrong century,” Detective Beckett continued.

“I’ve told her she should have been wearing Victoria’s outfit.” Castle grinned. He wasn’t amused, though - Vi hadn’t taken his not quite arrest well. And the cops hadn’t taken her attitude well. Nor the fact that her swords and other blades were real.

“I think the details of your love life are not relevant to the case at hand, Mister Castle.” Beckett’s voice could have frozen a lake in summer.

“Love life? Oh, no, not that kind of Victoria. Victoria is a character in my latest book, a vampire hunter in training. Vi and I aren’t in a relationship.” Maybe starting that joke hadn’t been a good idea at all.

“She’s just been living across your own apartment, since she moved to New York six years ago.” The detective didn’t seem to believe him.

“She’s a friend of the family.” Castle sounded a bit too defensive. There hadn’t been anything between him and Vi, even though they joked about it at times. He prefered his women a bit less able to crush his ribs and hips by mistake.

“Of course.” No, she didn’t believe him at all. He was just too handsome, he assumed, for the detective to think a girl could resist him.

“I am not as bad as my reputation makes me out to be, Detective. Unless a woman wants me to be, of course,” he added with a charming grin.

She didn’t answer that, just held open the door of the interrogation room with a cooly raised eyebrow and the kind of glare that made any man feel like a dog. Women!

He had to get her number.

*****

**New York, March 2009**

“Does that mean Dawn’s no longer your number one fan? She never staged a murder using one of your novels as a script...”

Richard Castle glared at Vi, but without any effect. “I could send Victoria into a convent in the next book, you know. Or show her as a fat, dumpy grandmother nagging her family…”

“I’ll be good!” Vi jumped off his desk, where she had been fiddling with his notes, and stood at attention, for about half a second, before slouching over again, and pulling one of her throwing knives out of the sheath to flip it around. For a Slayer, this was as close as they ever got to standing still outside an ambush. “But honestly? Someone killing people with a ritual you made up explicitly so it wouldn’t work? That sounds fishy.”

“It’s ‘smells fishy’,” Castle corrected his Slayer while going over his notes again. “I called London so they can look into the records of the mission I used as inspiration. But anyone trying to resurrect that particular demon warlock would know about the real rituals.”

“Do you think it’s simply a crazy murderer then?”

“Even if it makes me sound bad, I certainly hope this is just a mundane case with some New Age dressing.” Castle sighed. “We can’t tell without the case files though. I asked Willow to hack into it, but she’s busy fixing a ritual gone wrong among her students.”

“We could steal them. Breaking into the precinct shouldn’t be too hard.” Vi sounded eager.

“Absolutely not! I am not explaining to London why my Slayer needs to be bailed out of prison, again!”

“That’s your job as my Watcher!” Vi pouted, but she was no match for Dawn and Buffy’s puppy dog eyes, and Castle had managed to resist those… after a number of failures.

“My job is to prevent you from getting arrested in the first place!” Rick glared at her again.

“Well, it’s not my fault if you’re so bad at it that I would get arrested in a simple breaking and entering mission.” Vi smirked, and Castle sputtered.

“Convent and fat,” he spat out.

“That’s petty! You should focus your efforts on teaching me how to break into places without getting caught.” Vi tried her puppy dog eyes again.

“And enabling you? Rupert would have my hide! Besides, one Slayer with a criminal history is enough, thank you very much, and you get into trouble far too often. I should ask Alexis to teach you about responsible use of your powers.” Castle stated.

“I’ll corrupt her to the true path of the Scoobies one of those days.” Vi dismissed the threat.

“More seriously, I’ll call the Mayor. I’ll offer to assist with the investigation. Once I am at the precinct, I’ll see if I can find out more about the case.” Castle sighed.

“Oh… so you getting caught spying is OK, but when I do it, it’s bad?” The redhead pouted again.

“It’s the getting caught part you need to work on. Specifically, the not getting caught part.” Castle smirked. “As a famous author, and officially assisting with the case, I’ll have a bit more leeway than you.”

“I bet that detective doesn’t give you even an inch of leeway.”

“We shall see, my dear Slayer. The Castle charm is not to be underestimated.” Rick grinned.

“Oh, I’ll see, indeed. You don’t think I’ll let you go alone, do you?” Vi looked at him with a decent copy of Willow’s resolve face.

Castle sighed again. Sometimes - a lot of times, actually - his Slayer was a bit too protective, or nosy. At least she’d be handy if things turned dangerous.

*****

Captain Montgomery was a very understanding man, Castle thought. Understanding when it came to the Mayor’s wishes. Getting official permission to assist the case was a breeze.

Trying to get a copy of the photos? Not so much. Vi had, vexingly, been right - Detective Beckett was a hard-ass. And very focused. Castle was currently stuck reading his own fan mail. A task he had hired people for since he didn’t want to deal with it in the first place. The irony was thick enough to stake it.

Even more vexing was that Vi was currently hanging out near the coffee maker and flirting with the two other detectives in Beckett’s team. If she managed to find out more about the case than Castle, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Oh here’s a delusional one,” Beckett spoke up suddenly. “A Miss Meyers thanks you for saving her life by warning her of vampires. Without your ‘arcane knowledge of the occult’, she claims she would have invited a vampire into her home.” She looked at Castle. “If the victim had been staked instead of gotten her heart cut out, I’d classify this as a suspect - she sounds delusional enough to hunt vampires.”

“Many of my fans have a rich but healthy imagination. And taking a few precautions, just in case vampires are real, doesn’t hurt anyone,” Castle responded, slightly peeved.

“Delusions are not a good thing. The victim might have found that out the hard way, Mister Castle.”

“Was she a fan as well?”

“No. We haven’t found any of your books in her dorm. But Billy-May Penderton, aspiring art student and hobby wiccan, had a lot of occult and New Age books. None of them correspond with any of the fictional grimoires mentioned in ‘Warlock’, though,” Beckett said.

“Wow, you seem to know my book very well. Or do you keep a Castle expert at hand?” Castle grinned when a slight twitch indicated that he might have been on the mark. “Can I see the list? I am a bit of a scholar when it comes to occult books, and some of them might give us a clue.” Seeing her frown, he quickly added: “I mean ‘us’ in a strictly professional sense, of course. Not in a personal sense. Though I am open for that meaning too, of course.” He flashed his best roguish smile at the detective. It wasn’t good enough. He did get the list though. All New Age fakes though.

“Beckett! IT’s cracked the vic’s computer. Guess what? She was very active on Wiccan boards, and she received a number of threats for her stance on magic and the supernatural,” Detective Ryan interrupted them.

Beckett stood up and followed her colleague to his computer. Castle threw down the latest letter he had been reading and followed.

“Check this out: Quite the flame war. Those people take their fantasies very seriously,” Ryan commented.

“Hopefully not deadly seriously,” Castle quipped. Beckett rolled her eyes at him, and he pouted “Tough crowd.”

“Our vic’s been in a flame war with dozens of people, and half of them warned her that she’ll die one day if she doesn’t take vampires or magic seriously.” Ryan looked at Beckett. “Sounds like a list of suspects to me.”

Castle mentally agreed - a number of those posters had very suspicious handles. ‘WillowTheWitch’, ‘SummerDawnPatrol’, ‘ViForVictory’, ‘Rrrrrona’... even for a Wiccan forum which attracted the real deal as well, this was a bit much.

“Look at that one! He sounds like a psychopath who thinks he is a real vampire! Tries to tell her they are all monsters, and then uses ‘actual examples from my past’.” Ryan pointed at one post.

Castle took a look, and recoiled. ‘BillyIdolStoleMyLook’? Who let Spike on a computer? And wait a minute… ‘ACastleinNewYork’? Alexis? He glared at Vi because she was the only one of the usual suspects who was around right now. She sent him a confused look. He’d tell and yell at her later.

“Make a list of the flamers, but I think this is a more promising lead.” Becket pointed at the PM folder of the victim’s account. It was full of messages from and for a ‘Damian’.

“That name alone is grounds for an arrest. It’s one of the signs of an evil god,” Castle stated.

“And the other signs would be?” Ryan asked while Beckett glared at them both.

“According to an expert I know, they are ‘cheap and slutty red dresses, a skanky attitude that causes insanity in anyone who gets too close, and a skull more dense than uranium. Also, the most extreme case of a blonde bipolar personality’,” Castle quoted Buffy’s list.

Ryan laughed. “That sounds like someone’s ex.”

Castle laughed with him - it did fit Gina somewhat - but a glare from Detective Beckett stopped both. “Touchy,” he whispered. “Is she always this serious?”

Ryan nodded, but appeared to be focusing on the computer again.

“My condolences,” Castle said, though his eyes tracked the detective’s rear while she walked over to the IT section, to get them to find the identity of this ‘Damian’.

Vi was still talking with the other detective, Esposito. Castle wasn’t certain what would be worse - the two of them hooking up, and him having to deal with a broken-hearted Slayer in a few weeks when the macho ego Vi found so attractive couldn’t handle a girlfriend who was stronger than any man, or Vi having more luck at getting information from her detective than he from his. If only Perlmutter wasn’t on vacation!

*****

“So, this ‘Damian’, real name ‘Sam Smith’, promises the poor impressionable proto-wiccan that he can ‘unlock her arcane potential’. They agree on a meeting, and that’s the last time she was seen alive. Is it just me, or does that look very suspicious?” Castle asked while sitting in Detective Beckett’s car on their way to Smith’s flat. “And, without wanting to impose on you, or disparage your very nice, solid, sensible, and so on, car: If you’d taken my offer of giving you a ride in my Roadster, we’d already have arrived.”

Becket glared at him. “He’s a suspect. It doesn’t mean he’s the murderer.”

“He could be another victim, missing his heart - he never had a brain to begin with, I think -  lying dead in a gutter, or sewer,” Castle said.

“Next you’ll claim he was killed by a Polgara Demon.” The detective scoffed.

“Oh, no! Wounds from a Polgara Demon look totally different than those. And such a demon would have eaten the body - they need to eat every two hours, so they usually are not able to remain under the radar,” Castle told her, as seriously as he could.

She stared at him until he laughed, then shook her head. “Just keep in mind that we’re hunting a real murderer, not a fictional character, Mister Castle. There’s no mystical ‘Vampire Hunter’ here to come to your rescue either.”

“Oh, I fully trust you to keep me safe, Detective.” Castle smiled winningly at her. “Especially since you are such a fan of my works to know so many details!” Vi was following them in his car anyway. Just in case the detective was wrong.

“Contrary to others, Mister Castle, I am perfectly able to separate fantasy and reality.” Beckett flashed him a brief but slightly sultry smile. He was sure she was warming up to him. This would be a very interesting investigation, he could tell. And the case was interesting too.

*****

**New York, March 2009**

“Why was your car following us?” Detective Beckett asked Richard Castle as they stopped in front of Smith’s house.

“Just in case I need to leave in a rush. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you by asking for a ride, Detective,” Rick said. He couldn’t very well tell her that Vi might be needed to deal with a supernatural threat, should ‘Damian’ turn out to be more than a deluded human. He really wished he could have taken his flamethrower with him.

“You use your barely legal girlfriend as your personal driver?” Beckett asked with scorn poking out behind her professional tone.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Castle countered. “And she’s twenty-three years old.”

Beckett gave him a look he was quite familiar with.

“She’s not my illegitimate daughter either,” he said, “despite what some rags claim. She’s a friend of the family, and works as my bodyguard at times.”

“And as your driver, obviously.” She stressed ‘driver’ as he had heard others stress ‘personal assistant’ when talking about a rich man’s mistress.

“Yes.” It was obvious that their cover story needed a bit more work - at least if he wanted to have any chance to date intelligent women. Like Beckett. And not women who didn’t notice when his family made fun of them in their presence. Like his last girlfriend.

She raised her eyebrows at him, pursed her lips and turned to enter the house. Rick huffed, then followed her.

The worst thing was that Vi wouldn’t even take offense at being mistaken for his girlfriend, a poor impressionable young woman seduced by the rich, older man. She’d consider it an amusing joke. Unless someone implied that she was after his money. That could turn ugly quite quickly.

*****

“Dear Lord!” Richard hadn’t seen that many occult books and trinkets in a while, at least outside the libraries of his colleagues.

Beckett turned towards him. “You don’t usually sound that British.”

“The sight took me back to the years I spent in London, working in a private library. I tried therapy to deal with it, but some scars linger,” he said, sighing dramatically. “You should hear my daughter talk - she spent half her life there.” And she used a deliberately strong British upper class accent when she was scolding him. Mary loved it, of course.

“My heart is bleeding for you. Studying abroad must have been a very difficult trial.” Beckett turned away and started to search the room.

“No, that was my first ex-wife.” He studied the books. Those on the shelves were the kind of crap emo kids would spend a lot of money for.

“Ah. It looks like ‘Damian’ bought more than books and crystals,” Beckett pulled out a drawer, revealing a collection of blades. “Red velvet. He went all out for those sacrificial daggers.”

Rick peered at them, then scoffed. “Those are useless trinkets. Dull blades for posers. Barely more useful than a spoon when you want to cut out a heart.”

“Really? Are you an expert for ritual murder?” Beckett was staring at him.

“I researched the matter extensively for my books,” Rick said. He wasn’t certain that she bought it. “I pride myself on getting the details right.” Or rather, just the right kind of wrong.

“That’s such an important part of writing stories about supernaturally empowered and endowed women battling demons.” The detective wasn’t quite mocking him, but she came close.

“Oh, believe me, I had to make my heroines supernaturally attractive for my own safety,” Rick said in the most serious tone he could manage.

“What?” Beckett stared at him, her mouth open in an expression of disbelief.

He shouldn’t be doing this, it was stupid to tease her like that, but he couldn’t resist. “Well, if there were actual supernaturally empowered demon hunting women around, they’d take offense if I described their literary versions as dumpy or ugly, and I’d end up ripped limb from limb.” Or at least lose one limb he really didn’t want to lose. Faith could be very expressive when making demands.

Beckett rolled her eyes again, then pointed at the empty but slightly dented space in the drawer. “In any case, one knife is missing. If that’s the murder weapon, then it couldn’t have been as useless as you claim.”

Rick was staring at a picture at the wall, showing a gaunt, tall pale young man in a cloak brandishing a blade, “That’s because if my guess is right, the missing knife is the one on this picture.” He pointed at it.

“That’s a rather plain looking knife. Not quite as fancy as the blades in the drawer,” Beckett stated.

“The really lethal things usually are not fancy, but practical.” He let his gaze wander over her jacket, turtleneck and jeans, then linger on her high heels before staring into her - very pretty - eyes again. “But often with just the right amount of stylish but impractical touch-ups.”

Her lips thinned, but she didn’t take the bait. But he thought she had shown the tiniest blush. Maybe. If he squinted.

He went on: “Like the obsidian hilt there on the picture, with the Aztec runes on it.” The hilt might even have been carved from the blade of an actual Aztec sacrificial knife. And that would be very bad news.

He looked around while Beckett studied the picture. A mop of red hair was visible outside the window, Vi was showing off again, hanging upside down from the roof. He pointed at the ground. Vi grinned in response, and pulled up.

When Beckett and Castle were leaving the house, the Slayer was leaning against the Z3 and smiling innocently at them.

*****

“What did London say?” Castle whispered into his smartphone while watching Beckett, Ryan and Esposito gather for a coffee break in the bullpen.

“The runes on the hilt are Aztec soul traps. They were used to capture demons in exorcism rituals,” Vi reported. “The obsidian was used as a sacrificial blade in those rituals.”

“So… our murder suspect could have a knife with a grip made from a demon’s prison.” Another clue that this was not a simple mundane murder.

“Yes.”

“But why the ritual? That wouldn’t do anything. How do you release such a captured demon?” He frowned, considering this.

“Willow said the blood matters. Nothing else. Bathe the stone in the blood of five humans and the seal breaks.”

“Damn! Why can’t those priests never create demon prisms that are impossible to break? No pride in their work, I guess.” Rick hated it when magic was simple and deadly. It was far more difficult to stop a ritual that wouldn’t blow up in a cult’s face if a candle was slightly out of alignment. “Run the list of receipts I mailed you, and check if there are some actual spellbooks among them anyway.”

“Will do. Don’t pant too much after the sexy detective, Rick! She might arrest you for sexual harassment.”

“Hush you!” He wasn’t that bad!

Vi ended the call with a giggle. Did everyone in his family have to make fun of his love life?

He was still frowning when he went for a coffee, and the detectives must have noticed.

“Love trouble?” Beckett asked.

“No. I had Vi check a book in my office. If the runes on the knife in the picture are any indication, then the guy could be following an Aztec myth. In that case, he might try to kill four more people to bath the knife in their blood,” Rick said while getting another coffee. He winced - that couldn’t be called coffee with a good conscience. It was to coffee what teabags were to real tea. Or American beer to Czech.

“You gave out pictures from a crime scene to your ‘driver’?” Beckett sounded livid.

Before Rick could answer, Captain Montgomery shouted from his office. “Beckett! Esposito! Ryan! They found another victim. Sacrificed like the first!”

*****

The girl was laid out on a slab of concrete, still bound with ropes from Walmart. She was missing her heart. The medical examiner, Lanie, was already on the job. Castle didn’t disturb her. He didn’t have to.

“Are you taking pictures?” Beckett asked, walking up to him. She wasn’t about to let the matter with the runes slide, it seemed.

“Not of the corpse. I am geotagging the location,” Rick said.

The woman blinked, then he eyes widened. “Like in ‘The Seal of Five’? You think he’s trying to paint a pentagram over New York with the blood of his victims?” She was sharp. And she knew his books very well. Interesting.

“A pentagram is one of the most common symbols used in occult rites. If this is the second point, then we can find the next three, and cover the areas.” His app had already done the work, and he showed it to her.

She plucked his phone out of his hand, stared at it, then turned and headed towards the other detectives without giving it back.

“Hey!” He went after her. “I need that! I can mail you the data and map!” He didn’t try to take it back by force though, and so remained out of luck, and out a phone.

“We’ve got an ID on the victim. Mary Simpson. Went missing last night, together with her friend, Claire Thompson.” Ryan announced when the two reached them.

“Damn. He has his third victim already…”

Castle and Beckett exchanged alarmed looks. She opened her mouth to say something, but Castle was faster.

“This time we take my car!”

*****

**New York, March 2009**

“I should arrest your driver!”

Richard Castle turned away from the fountain he was studying to face Detective Beckett. “Why?”

“She must have broken every traffic law on the books to arrive here that fast.”

“That’s just the result of good German engineering,” Rick answered. And Slayer reflexes behind the wheel, and plain madness. It said disturbing things about his own mental health that he let Vi drive at all.

“Tell me another one! And why didn’t you follow me, instead of rushing ahead? We’re talking about a dangerous killer here!” Beckett glared at him. “I should arrest you for your own good.”

“But you won’t, since you need me.” Castle smiled at her. If she tried to arrest him, Vi would intervene,and that would be bad. Or, worse, she’d let the detective arrest him to keep both of them safe. Vi sometimes had peculiar ideas about the proper relationship between a Watcher and his Slayer. All Buffy’s fault, of course. Sometimes Castle wondered if Rupert really had been knocked out that often by demons, or if Buffy had taken a hands-on approach to make sure he’d stay safely out of a battle.

“I would not call it ‘need’. Your obnoxious attitude is close to outweighing your limited usefulness.” Her glare had grown more intense. Under that professional mask the detective was a very passionate woman.

“You wound me, detective!” He put a hand on his chest.

“Not yet.” And that was a smile Faith would be proud of. Not that he’d never compare Faith to a cop where either could hear him.

“I didn’t find any sign of the murderer,” Vi’s arrival interrupted both. She hadn’t sensed any demon then. That was ‘not of the good’, as Buffy would say.

The detective had her gun drawn before she realized it was Vi who had snuck up on them. Castle was used to ‘Slayer stealth’, as he called it. Beckett didn’t comment on it though, but she glared at the redhead while she reholstered her gun. Vi smirked at her, totally ignoring his gestures behind the detective’s back to cut the attitude. Slayers!

“I don’t get it. This is the next point of the pentagram. If he’s painting a pentagram in blood, like in my novel, he’d have to come here.” Castle didn’t want to know what would happen if the man had started to randomly pick murder locations.

“Patrols are at the other locations. They haven’t found anything there either.” Beckett stated after a brief check with her team - on her own phone, at last. “You can draw a pentagram two ways from the same point.”

“Yeah, but the other version has the third point in the middle of the Hudson River.” Castle wasn’t quite letting his annoyance show. He had considered that. “I doubt he’s going scuba diving with his victim. Makes it hard to use the blood....” he trailed off when he realized just where the alternate point was.

“The tunnel!” Both he and Beckett exclaimed at the same time. After a brief, startled pause, both of them were rushing towards the parked cars.

“See you in the tunnel, Detective Beckett!” Castle yelled, opening the passenger door of his Z3. Vi, of course, was already seated and had started the engine.

“No you don’t!” Beckett answered and, to Castle’s great surprise, slipped in after him, onto his lap. “You’re not leaving me behind.”

Vi stared at her, then at Castle, clearly waiting for his decision.

He had a pretty girl in his lap and a demon-possessed murderer to catch. There was only one answer. “Hit it, Vi!”

And they were off.

*****

Reality had crushed another fantasy of Rick. Well, not exactly crushed, but he had thought a drive at high speed with a pretty girl in his lap would have been a bit more exciting. At least Beckett had stopped screaming after the third time Vi had taken an unorthodox shortcut. And she had calmed down somewhat when Vi stopped the car in front of the tunnel’s maintenance access. Calmed down enough at least to not threaten to shoot the redhead any more. He still had to push her out of the car and his lap, but she managed to stand, which made her tougher than most Watchers who let a Slayer drive a high-performance car for the first time.

“That… that… you’re a menace! A danger to society! You almost killed us a dozen times, and I lost count of how many people you endangered!” Beckett shouted, and Castle had the impression she was reconsidering not shooting Vi.

Vi was ignoring her and already opening the access door to the maintenance tunnel.

“Do I want to know why she has a key to this door?” Becket seemed to find getting ignored even more vexing than almost getting killed in traffic.

“The municipality cut corners. They only have about a dozen different keys for those doors.” Castle answered. And he and Vi had copies of all of them. They needed them - New York might not have been built with underground routes for vampires and other demons in mind, but there were so many tunnels and sewers, both new and abandoned, it hardly made a difference. Of course, in a pinch, Vi could simply break those doors open. Or kick them open. That usually surprised demons. And on two occasions, had taken them out when the door hit them. But keys left less traces and were more convenient. Especially for a ruggedly handsome Watcher who couldn’t kick a metal door open.

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Beckett said, but she was rushing after Vi, who was sprinting ahead.

Castle followed. Without the Ack Pack - that would have been impossible to explain to the detective - he was faster than usual, and could keep up with the detective. She made a fetching sight, running in high heels through the cramped maintenance tunnel. Obviously fit. Dedicated. Smart. About to face a demon as a normal human. Granted, she didn’t know that, but he had a feeling that if she knew, she’d still run as fast, or faster, towards danger.

They heard a scream ahead. A girl - not Vi, of course - in mortal terror. The scream went on and didn’t get cut off. That was a good sign, usually, for last second rescues.

Beckett pulled ahead, and Castle grinded his teeth - briefly, he needed his mouth wide open to breath. He should start running in the morning. Or go to the gym more often. It was a nice place to meet women too, although…

Beckett entered a larger room, ahead of him. “NYPD, you’re under arrest!”

Castle reached the room as well, and was relieved at what he saw. Vi was beating ‘Damian’ around. The man looked crazy, and seemed tougher than a normal human had any right to be, and was wielding that knife with the obsidian grip, but Vi had it under control.

“NYPD! You’re under arrest. Miss, get away, I cannot shoot if you’re so close!” Beckett was moving around, trying to get a clear line of fire. Vi ignored her commands, the murderer did the same, and Castle went for the victim, who fortunately seemed unhurt.

She had stopped screaming too, but was still crying. “It’s ok, we’re here to save you, Miss Thompson.” He knelt down next to her, pulled out his bowie knife and started to cut through the ropes that kept the girl fastened to a rusting pushcart.

“Castle! Tell her to get away from him!” Beckett yelled at him, but he ignored her as well. As if Vi would listen to him just to let the cop steal her ‘kill’.

His Slayer was taking her time, he could tell - or downplaying her abilities because of the detective’s presence. The redhead didn’t knock the possessed - probably - man out until Castle had freed the kidnapped girl and covered her with his jacket.

Beckett knelt on the man and handcuffed him one handed, gun pressed to his head. It was quite impressive, even counting the fact that the guy was unconscious. Castle had a sudden vision of Beckett handcuffing a Fyarl demon for attempted murder, and couldn’t help snickering at the absurdity of the thought. On the other hand, was it really that absurd?

“Do you find this amusing, Mister Castle?” Beckett was in his face, livid. “Your ‘driver’ is lucky not to have been wounded or even killed fighting a deranged and armed murderer. Why didn’t you call her back? This is not some novel of yours!”

If he told her the Slayer wouldn’t listen to him and had likely been showing off to her, and showing her up at the same time since Slayers just were like that, she’d probably explode. So he lied: “I was focused on saving the girl, sorry.” He smiled his best ‘I am innocent, really’ smile at her.

It didn’t work. “So you and your girlfriend wanted to play hero!” She snarled at him. “This is not some cosplay con!” He wouldn't have thought she was familiar with that particular scene.

At least he served as a distraction so Vi could remove the obsidian part containing the demon’s soul from the knife behind the detective’s back.

“Now that you mention it, that would make a good scene in a book.” He grinned. She was about to explode when he continued. “You’d make a good character too. Suitably altered of course.”

“What?” She blinked, gaping at him. “Suitably altered?”

“Oh, yes. A smart, sassy and stubborn detective investigating paranormal crimes! I might start a new series, even. ‘Vampire Hunter’ in an Urban Fantasy setting. It has been very popular lately.” And probably responsible for a fair number of deaths of girls thinking bloodsuckers were romantic. “I’ll skip the almost obligatory love triangle with the vampire and werewolf, though - you don’t seem to be the type to play with two men at the same time.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. “I will not even deign that with an answer. I’ll head out to call my team. Do not move from here, or I’ll arrest you both!”

He grinned at her retreating back, until he caught Vi’s expression. His Slayer was frowning at him. “What?”

“You’re not making her a ‘Vampire Hunter’, right?” Vi seemed oddly concerned.

“No. I am thinking of a normal human detective.” He wouldn’t have to make Beckett superhuman to make her interesting, he knew that. A woman like her, in the police? There was more than one story to be found. Or spun.

“Good! Then I call dibs on the ‘Vampire Hunter’ part!” Vi grinned.

“What ‘Vampire Hunter’ part?”

“You can’t fight evil without a ‘superhuman hot chick’!” Vi was quoting Faith. Drunk Faith. ”Of course there’ll be a ‘Vampire Hunter’ part. A redheaded, beautiful, smart and stylish ‘Vampire Hunter’!”

Dear Lord, she was serious!

*****

Obsidian dissolving in a magical mixture of herbs and holy water was a fascinating sight. Castle stared at it as it sizzled and hissed in his ceramic bowl.

“You won’t be seeing a green shade escape it, dad. Willow was quite clear about it.” Alexis had joined him in his study.

“Have you been listening to my calls again?” He frowned at her.

“Of course not. I asked her,” Alexis said, all falsely accused innocence.

“And she told you?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Of course. She knows who’s the most dependable person in this Scoobie Unit.” Alexis nodded with an expression that clearly stated she was carrying a heavy burden.

“We’re not a ‘Scoobie Unit’. We’re a Watcher and a Slayer.” And his daughter wasn’t part of that.

“And me. Watcher in training.” His daughter beamed at him.

“You… what… no. No.” She wouldn’t. London wouldn’t... who was he kidding? Mary would be overjoyed. And the scoobies wouldn’t really object too much to someone following in their footsteps. And Alexis would do that. Damn.

“So, did you get a date with the hot detective?” Alexis asked a bit too casually.

“Don’t change the topic! And no, I didn’t ask.” Yet. He’d have to let her cool off a bit more.

“So, you asking the Mayor to get assigned as a consultant to her precinct so you can ‘research for your next book’ is a purely professional decision?” Alexis smirked at him.

“Yes.” It would allow him to study cases that might have supernatural ties as well. A win-win-win situation. Unless the detective shot him. Down, he meant.

“Don’t forget, if you’re interested in her, you have to run her by me and Gran first. And probably Vi too. You promised.”

“That was eight years ago! And I didn’t promise anything! And you didn’t say anything about my last girlfriends.”

“Bimbos don’t count.” Alexis scoffed. “So, when will you invite her over?”

“When she doesn’t feel hostile to me any more. Vi didn’t make too positive an impression, and I got stuck with the blame.”

“So, never then. And I had so hoped for a smart stepmother!” Alexis shook her head in mock sorrow, but Rick couldn’t tell if she was actually sad, or relieved. Or a bit of both.

He only knew he’d see Detective Kate Beckett again.

*****

**New York, April 2009**

“You know, if I was an insecure man, I’d suspect you were not happy to see me,” Richard Castle said while testing the chair he had nicked near Detective Beckett’s desk.

“If you were a bit more perceptive, and less narcissistic, you’d know that I’m not happy about the fact that some rich Fantasy author gets to follow me around, hindering my work, just because the Mayor’s a fan!” Beckett glared at him.

He cringed a bit - the woman was armed, after all - but he rallied quickly. “In my experience, an outside view, an open mind, some unorthodox theories, often greatly benefit any organisation.” Like the Watchers Council, for example. Even if Mary and Rupert both tended to complain that they had a bit too many ‘open minds’ at times, with the Scoobies in charge.

“I will be grateful for your presence the next time we have to arrest a vampire, Mister Castle.” Her smile was condescendingly sweet and false.

“Please - only a fool would arrest a vampire. Those undead demons need to be staked at once!” he declared. With the possible exception of one or two souled vampires. “You should know that, after reading my books.”

She rolled her eyes, then grabbed the pen he was twirling around his fingers and put it back in the small cup on her desk. She probably liked her desk as she liked her life, neat and orderly, Castle thought.

“Why are you here? It’s not to ‘gain inspiration for a new series’ as you claim. You write Fantasy, not crime mysteries. All you are doing is distracting me from my work.”

“Oh, I’m distracting you?” He perked up. “But you’re wrong!” He noticed her lips purse. She didn’t like to be told she was wrong, she probably loathed to actually be proven wrong. “I’m looking for inspiration for my new series, which will be centered on a modern cop dealing with supernatural crime. And vampires.”

She blinked. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious.” For a second, he let the experienced watcher shine through the facade of the humble author. Let her see the stare of a man who had fought the First Evil and lived to tell and write the tale.

Since she rolled her eyes in response, she probably had missed all that. He really had to work on it. It was so much easier to put in writing. He smiled his most ruggedly charming smile at her instead. “You intrigue me, Detective. I can see you handling vampires, booking Brachen Demons and shooting Polgara Demons.”

“You’ve got a very vivid imagination, Mister Castle.”

“Oh, yes.” His smile widened, and she frowned again.

A whistle from Esposito drew their attention to the elevator area, and Castle winced. Vi had arrived, and she had ‘dressed to impress’ - but a biker gang, not cops. The redhead was wearing black leather jacket and pants, matching boots, and a low-cut top that left her midriff bare. He just knew she had done that to make a statement, but he didn’t exactly know which. Probably part of the rivalry with Beckett she assumed to exist. Slayers!

“What’s your girlfriend doing here? Other than making a spectacle?” Apparently, that rivalry wasn’t just Vi’s imagination, judging by the icy tone of the detective.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Castle answered automatically. “And I suppose she brought me the keys to my new car.” He pointed at the keys Vi was juggling as she made her way towards them in the most provocative manner she could manage. “Must have been taking lessons from Faith,” Rick whispered, too low for anyone but Vi to hear. His Slayer grinned in response.

“New car? What happened to the Z3?” Ryan asked. Probably to keep himself from staring and looking foolish, like his partner.

“Nothing. But it only has two seats, and I can’t expect the good detective to sit in my lap for every ride. It’s illegal, after all,” Rick quipped, and instantly regretted it.

“You sat on his lap, Beckett?” Ryan stared at the woman, who was fuming at Castle.

“It was an emergency. We had to race to save the third victim of Smith, remember?” Beckett explained to her two colleagues, while shooting Castle a death glare. “And if anyone brings this up again, they’ll live to regret it for a long time.”

Rick and the two detectives nodded in unison. Vi giggled, and tossed him the keys. “Here, Rick. It handles like a dream.”

“What did you buy?” Esposito asked, still staring at Vi, or rather, at her body.

“Ford Shelby GT500KR. I wanted a practical car for police work,” Rick said. It had been rather cheap too.

“I don’t want to know what you’d consider an impractical car,” Beckett said in a dry voice while the two detectives whistled again. She sent them a glare, which shut them up at once. “Don’t get your hopes up, boys. She’s his ‘driver’.”

Castle glared at her for the insinuation, but she ignored it.

“You can drive me anywhere, anytime!” Esposito said, smiling at the redhead.

“You won’t say that after you’ve gotten a ride with her.” Beckett snorted.

“That sounds dirty, Beckett,” Esposito said, but he cringed when she narrowed her eyes at him.

“In any case, you’ve brought him the keys to his new toy… have a nice day, Miss Driver.” Beckett smiled at Vi, then pointedly looked at the exit.

Vi smiled back, and Castle was reminded of a few of the ‘disputes’ between Slayers he had seen. It was more a baring of teeth. “I’m not just Rick’s driver, I‘m also his bodyguard. So you won’t have to worry about keeping him safe and can focus on solving your case.”

Rick wished she hadn’t put that emphasis on ‘body’. At least she wasn’t leaning against him as if she was marking her territory. She had done that a few times, wrecking possible relationships. He was certain she had been in cahoots with the other two redheads in his life in those cases, but no one had ever admitted it.

“A bodyguard? You?” Beckett had stood up and was staring at the slightly smaller - even without heels - Slayer.

“Yes, me.” Vi smiled, impudently. “Don’t worry, if needed, I’ll protect you too.”

No one reacted to Esposito’s muttered ‘you can protect me anytime’ while the two women stared at each other. Castle had to fight the urge to take cover.

“I doubt that Castle will be swarmed with rabid fans during one of our investigations, so I don’t think your services will be needed,” Beckett said, more than a bit patronisingly.

“I am ready for any threat,” Vi answered, patting her jacket.

“I am certain the detective can keep me safe,” Castle threw in, but he was ignored as Becket raised an eyebrow,

“Are you armed?” Beckett tensed up.

“Yes.” Vi’s expression would have graced every NRA poster about ‘cold dead fingers’ if anyone had made a picture right then. “I’ve got licenses for all my weapons, of course.”

“All your weapons?” Beckett’s lips formed a very thin line now.

“The rest is in the car,” Vi blithely - or not so blithely - explained.

“Mister Castle! It’s one thing to have an author following us around, getting into our way. It’s another thing to have his armed girlfriend shooting us or others by mistake when she tries to play hero again! This is not acceptable!”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Castle answered. Why didn’t anyone believe him?

“I’m a better shot than anyone else here,” Vi said, with narrowed eyes. She was growing angry, Rick knew. Slayers usually got as testy when people doubted their skills as when someone tried to take their weapons, and this was shaping up to become a perfect storm. Worse than Faith’s last visit to the LAPD, and there was still wild speculation about that incident on conspiracy theory forums.

“I am sure you are.” Beckett’s voice dripped with so much sarcasm, Castle was tempted to check if there was a puddle on the floor.

“Wanna bet? I’ll outshoot you and the two stooges, and you’ll shut up about me possibly endangering you. I don’t, and Castle has to brave the dangers of New York alone.” Vi grinned.

Castle groaned. That was the most stupid thing he had heard since Spike offering to babysit Alexis. No one sane would agree to that kind of bet.

“You’re on.”

Maybe he had overestimated Beckett’s sanity. Or underestimated her pride.

*****

The range in the basement of the 12th Precinct was nothing fancy. A few lanes with targets that could be moved to various distances. Knowing Vi, Castle donned ear protection at once. Fortunately, the detectives followed suit. He had to glare at Vi before she grabbed ear protectors as well.

“Now…” Beckett trailed off when Vi started to walk past every lane, sending the targets back with the remote. Castle sighed, knowing what was coming. He blamed Faith, for introducing the girls to that stunt, under the pretext of winning free drinks in bets.

“Time!” Vi called, standing in the lane in the middle.

“Go!” Castle said, hitting the stopwatch app on his phone.

It was remarkable how close to an automatic weapon a Glock Model 20 sounded when fired by a Slayer as fast as she could pull the trigger.

“Three seconds.”

“You were too slow to click, Rick!”

Eight targets, each hit in the middle of the head, and in the heart area. Each shot placed in the exact same spot. At least she hadn’t shot at the groin area, this time. The cops were staring. At the target, at Vi, then at Castle.

“She grew up in a family where shooting was the only hobby allowed?” Castle smiled weakly while Vi walked out. “And she’s not my girlfriend!” he added.

Not that anyone would listen to him. Not the cops, not his family, not his Slayer. Story of his life.

*****

**New York, April 2009**

The mood in the bullpen was tense. At least where Beckett and Castle were sitting. The mood in the break area, where Vi was shamelessly flirting with Ryan and Esposito, who seemed to have forgotten she had called them ‘stooges’ just a bit ago, wasn’t tense. But Castle couldn’t help feeling that the spectacle was directly contributing to Beckett’s worsening mood. And that made him fear for his own safety, since he was getting blamed for his Slayer’s actions. Unfairly, of course.

He was just steeling himself to risk life and limb, or at least his remaining chances with the detective, to make a bit of conversation, when her phone rang. She listened, then yelled to the break area. “Ryan! Esposito! Stop hitting on Castle’s girlfriend, and get moving. We’ve got a case!”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Castle said, following Beckett to the elevator. “Wouldn’t you think I’d show some reaction to her flirting with your colleagues if that was the case?”

The detective cocked her head at him. “Some people like showing off their trophies. Yachts, girls, cars.”

Castle didn’t answer. He had wanted a Shelby for years, and it was a practical car. Compared to his Z3.

A faint grin showed Beckett had noticed his reaction. They rode the elevator down in silence.

He followed Beckett to her car. When she shot him another look, he said: “It’s not an emergency, is it?”

“Does that mean your ‘bodyguard’ will be joining us as well?”

“Unless she wants to ride with your colleagues.” Castle smiled, but stopped when he noticed her expression. He didn’t know if Beckett thought Vi riding with the two male detectives was worse than the Slayer riding in her car, but it was rather clear that she thought Vi coming along at all was bad enough.

“So… what’s the case about?” Castle asked.

“Mrs. Jennifer Farwright was found dead in her office. Stuffed into her safe,” Beckett said while leaving the pond.

Castle winced. “That must have been a big safe.”

“Probably.”

*****

It hadn’t been a big safe. Not at all. Just a medium-sized safe mounted in a wall. Castle whistled at the gory sight, which didn’t seem to impress the cops on the scene. Or Detective Beckett. “Wow. How much force do you need to stuff a human into that?”

“A lot more than a human can exert, without the help of hydraulics or other tools” Perlmutter said, poking the gory mess with a probe.

“How do you even find the liver in there?” Castle wondered.

“With great experience,” the Medical Examiner answered.

“Perlmutter, this is Richard Castle. A friend of the mayor who’s ‘consulting’ with us,” Becket introduced Rick.

“We’ve met before.”

That surprised Beckett.

“He’s a friend of my mother,” Castle said. It was technically correct, but the tone he used put another spin on the meaning. Which had been correct as well, in the past. Beckett shut up, but raised her eyebrows at Perlmutter’s back.

“If we were in one of my novels, I’d suspect a troll. But they would have eaten the victim. A Fyarl Demon would have been strong enough as well.” Castle crouched down, carefully avoiding the pool of drying blood. There were no marks on the floor - not from claws, not from any kind of machinery that would have been strong enough to turn a human being into canned meat.

“Castle, be serious! This is a real crime, not a fantasy!” Beckett hissed at him.

“Hm. The liver’s missing,” Perlmutter said.

“A troll with a taste for liver?” Castle raised his eyebrows. That earned him another glare.

“I’ve not found any sign of non-human tissue or hair so far,” Perlmutter said in his dryest tone. Beckett briefly smiled upon hearing it. She stopped as soon as she saw Vi poking around the door to the room.

“No sign of a struggle,” Castle added, hoping to draw the detective’s attention away from the snooping Slayer.

“She might have been killed elsewhere, and then carried to this spot.” Beckett crouched down as well. “If she’s missing the liver, then someone took care not to leave any blood trail.”

“Or cleaned up.” Castle saw Vi sniff the door.

“That’s harder than the TV portrays it. And takes a long time. Time the killer didn’t have.” Beckett stood up. “According to the maid, Mrs. Farwright sent her to buy groceries, since she expected her niece to visit. The maid took one hour, and when she came back, she found the victim.”

“Door’s untouched. No one broke in. Windows are closed as well, and show no sign of tampering. Odds are, the killer knew her,” Ryan said. “The maid’s story checks out according to the logs from the register at the shop, and the cameras in the street. But the security camera doesn’t show any visitor.”

“Maybe the killer entered earlier, and hid until the maid left?” Castle said. The others didn’t look convinced, but no one dismissed it as impossible. He was making progress!

“Ryan, Esposito, check with the neighbours. I … and Castle… will talk to the niece.” Beckett didn’t mention Vi, who was still poking around - though not touching anything, so the detective couldn’t yell at her. Which was annoying her, Rick suspected. That wasn’t a surprise - Vi had a talent for bending the rules just this side of breaking them.

When they left, he let Beckett pull ahead a bit, and sent a questioning glance at his Slayer.

“I thought I smelled some Fyarl snot, but I couldn’t find it. Nor did I smell blood anywhere apart from the safe,” she whispered.

That sounded like magic. Castle wasn’t liking this case any more. Witches were bad news, Willow’s opinions notwithstanding.

*****

According to the files Ryan had pulled up and sent to Beckett, Miss Janet Farwright was a pretty girl currently attending a private college - not quite Ivy league, though. She wasn’t living at home, nor in a dorm, but in a small flat near the campus, popular among the students from richer families. “Hm… her parents recently moved out of their house, into a rented flat. Money troubles?” Castle rubbed his chin in a sophisticated and pensive manner.

“Probably. And the girl is making nice with the still rich aunt,” Beckett said while driving past the campus.

“And maybe going a step further. Maybe because she’s now the sole heir to the fortune, maybe because the aunt has seen through her act, and if she dies, the parents will inherit. Making her rich again,” Castle said.

“Inheritance laws are a bit different in New York than in medieval Europe,” Beckett chided him. Vi, sprawled out on the backseat, chuckled. Traitor.

He pouted at the detective. “Believe me, I am quite familiar with inheritance laws.” As a Watcher, he had had to prepare for the possibility of his sudden and violent death years ago.

They stopped in front of a well-preserved but old building. A brief glance told Castle that the flowerpots on the balconies probably hadn’t grown flowers in a while, but vegetables instead, or herbs - or weed.

They passed a bunch of college students on the way, and Vi’s attire caused two of them to almost fall down the stairs when they stared at her a bit too long. Castle shook his head, Vi giggled and even Beckett seemed to smile.

Janet Farwright opened the door, red eyes and tears visible on her face. “Y-Yes?”

“Detective Becket, NYPD. Miss Farwright, we need to ask you a few questions about your aunt.”

While Beckett questioned the girl - who had an alibi ready: she had been with her friend, also present, who looked more than a bit stoned - Castle and Vi snooped around. There were lots of environmental activist materials - flyers, posters, brochures - but no pagan symbols hanging around, no leather tomes on the shelves, nor cauldrons boiling. But the cupboard had some interesting herbs. And a freshly washed mortar.

“Lethe’s bramble?” Castle asked quietly, after a glance back to make sure the girl wasn’t watching.

Vi sniffed the mortar. “Yes.”

*****

“What do you think? That alibi looks a bit thin,” Castle said back in the car.

“It’s thin. That boyfriend was too addled to tell the time, much less that precisely. He was coached,” Beckett said. “He’ll spill in an interrogation.”

Castle wasn’t so certain. Magical mind control could do a lot of things. It wasn’t all-powerful though. It wouldn’t have let the girl control the victim enough to get the money. Not without breaking.

“But we still don’t have any positive evidence,” Beckett continued.

Back at the Precinct, that didn’t change. But they found out that the security cameras had stopped recording for an hour - without logging the interruption. If it had been Janet, then this had murder had been planned, Castle thought.

On the other hand, Janet had received a scholarship grant, allowing her to continue her studies. Esposito had found that out from Janet’s parents. They also mentioned that their daughter and the victim had a falling out over a development project the victim had financed. Janet hadn’t mentioned that.

“Killing for a few trees? That seems quite drastic,” as the detective put it.

“And even if that was the motive, how was it done? How did the victim end up in the safe, mangled like that?” Beckett asked. “She’d had to have help. And that kind of help usually isn’t easy to get for a college kid.”

Castle exchanged a glance with Vi. He could think of a few possible suspects for the kind of help she might have gotten. And where the liver was now.

It was time to visit ‘Clark’s’.

*****

**New York, April 2009**

The patrons of ‘Clark’s’ tensed up when Violet O’Malley and Rick Castle entered, but no one tried to run or attack them. The bouncers didn’t even react to them any more, other than some slight twitching when Vi stared at them for too long. Brinner, the owner of the demon bar, had really cleaned up his act over the years. And it had only taken half a dozen thrashings from Vi, two demonstrations of the Ack Pack, and one visit by Faith and Buffy. But after his bar had been rebuilt twice, and his regulars decimated three times, he had finally come around to the new Council’s way of thinking. The demonic bartender still had some disreputable clients, but they were the questionable rather than stake-on-sight kind. Some people simply took a bit longer to learn the facts of life, Castle guessed. And to decorate a bar so it didn’t look like a crime against humanity.

Brinner even had become a useful contact. Within limits. He wasn’t exactly a fountain of information, but Vi didn’t have to literally shake him down any more to get some directions to troublesome demons. He still refused to let Castle attend the Kitten Poker evenings, though.

Castle leaned on the bar, keeping an eye on the regulars, while Vi went through the usual motions, threatening the Loose-Skinned Demon in creative ways.

“And if you don’t get helpful right now, I’ll stuff you into a laundry machine and wash you until you skin has shrunk to fit your size! Got that, Brinner?”

It was an act, to let Brinner claim he was forced to help the Slayer. The smarter demons among his patrons understood that it would stop being an act in a heartbeat if it was needed, but occasionally, some newcomers tried to intervene, and Vi and Rick had to show them why you didn’t fuck with the Slayer in New York. Or anywhere else.

“Br’gek said he had some liver… well, I overheard him ask around if anyone was interested…”

“And who is that creep, what is he, and where can I find his soon to be slain hide?”

The way a Loose-Skinned Demon’s folds flapped around when he was shaken like a ragdoll was a fascinating and disgusting sight. Vi didn’t have to actually shake him down, but she did it anyway if she felt like it. Castle didn’t mind, of course.

*****

“Why can’t those demons live in nicer, cleaner spaces?” Vi complained, staring a smudge of… something… on her boot.

“Because New York is a very expensive area, and they can’t scrape enough money together for a deposit that covers damage from visiting Slayers,” Rick said as the two made their way through the basement of an abandoned factory. “But in a way, this is like a demon version of a loft - just without all the remodeling, and using the basement, instead of the upper levels, for housing.”

Vi snickered and shook her head, then stiffened for an instant, head cocked to the side. Rick knew she had sensed their prey. She was like a hound dog, in that way. Not that he’d ever make that comparison where she could hear it.

The two picked up their pace, Vi taking point and kicking the next door in, revealing a Fyarl Demon in what Rupert would be calling a ‘threat display’. Rick’s colleague was an expert for Fyarl Demons, for a reason he had never discussed. Rick suspected someone he cared for had been killed by one of the buggers.

Rick stepped to the side, and Vi charged ahead, dodging the load of paralyzing snot coming at her before slamming her foot into the side of the demon’s left knee. Howling, it tried to take her head off, but she had dropped below his swing, and was rolling on the floor to his back. Rick watched, but kept his pistol with the silver bullets ready. Just in case Vi caught a case of bad luck.

She didn’t. Another kick smashed the monster’s nose in, ruining his ability to snot at people and staggering it. Away from a Hellmouth, they really were not that tough compared to a Slayer. Then the blades came out, and tendons got cut.

“You could have simply shot his knees out with the shotgun,” Rick commented as he stepped inside the room.

“I don’t want to get rusty. Not everything can be shot.” Vi curb-stomped the demon’s right claw, then put her foot on his back and kept him down.

“Point.” Rick looked around, spotting a tupperware container with the slightly decomposing missing liver in it. Fyarls - not the brightest bulbs among demons. He sighed, then crouched down at the side of the demon.

“Hello. I am Castle, that’s Vi. We’ve got a few questions for you regarding the murder of a Mrs. Jennifer Farwright, who was found stuffed into her safe and missing her liver. You wouldn’t know something about it, would you?”

He did, but it took a few more applications of controlled violence from Vi until he spilled what he knew. After the monster had finished, Rick pulled out his smartphone and showed the demon a picture. “So… this girl hired you for the murder, and then used magic to clean up?” A weak nod from the broken demon confirmed Janet’s involvement.

A stab with a silver dagger later, one of the murderers was no more.

Vi stood up, wiping the blade clean on a rag. “So, Rick… we know the perp, but we can’t prove it. What do we do?”

“We can’t take her out now, not with the police involved. We’ll have to see how the investigation is proceeding. Given that the girl wanted her aunt to ‘die surrounded by the money she loved more than her niece’, our new friends from the 12th Precinct might turn up something.

*****

“Oh, back to nature!” Rick grinned as Becket stopped the car at the edge of a small forest in New Jersey.

“Don’t wander off! I’d rather not explain to the Captain why the Mayor’s friend got lost in the woods,” Beckett ordered, then went to look at a big sign declaring this the future location of the ‘Pine Forest Condo Complex’. Rick couldn’t spot any pines in the wood, but he guessed the future owners wouldn’t care, since the wood would be cleared anyway.

“Will it still be built, with the main investor dead?” he asked, watching the trees.

“That depends on what her heirs decide.”

Vi was moving slowly, a bit too nonchalantly, towards the edge of the forest. She probably had spotted someone - or something. If they encountered a demon here… well, he was already wondering how Beckett would react to such a revelation, but she’d probably try to shoot things that couldn’t be shot, and get hurt for her ignorance.

And it would be his fault, somewhat.

It wasn’t a demon that stepped out from between the trees, but a young woman, in what Castle was calling ‘hippie chic’ where Willow couldn’t hear him. Real hippies, as his mother had been fond to tell him, didn’t wear labels.

“Detective Beckett, NYPD. May I ask what you are doing here?” Beckett took charge, or thought so.

“I am Mary-Anne Waterson. I was visiting our grove,” the woman said, her attention fixed on Vi. She was wearing a symbol for the Earth-Goddess Castle recognized. A Wiccan then. Probably even a real one, since Vi remained tense.

“Your grove?” Beckett must have picked up on the tension.

“My coven’s grove. The place where we gather to worship the Earth,” the woman said, briefly making eye contact with the cop, before turning her attention back on the Slayer. Definitely a witch.

Beckett’s eyebrows rose a bit, but that was all the reaction she showed. “Do you know a Miss Janet Farwright?”

“Yes, she is also a member of our coven.”

“So that’s why she was opposed to the construction project!” Castle said loudly, as if he had just realized it. The look Beckett gave him showed she had bought the deception. Or she was just annoyed that he was blurting out information.

“Yes. She was very distraught that a member of her family was about to destroy our holy place.” The woman explained, in a slightly ethereal voice.

“Did she say anything about her dispute with her aunt lately?” Beckett said.

Waterson shook her head. “Only that she was optimistic that her aunt would see reason, and not choose money over her family, and nature. She didn’t tell us anything more than that.”

“Well, I am not certain that dying can be equaled to seeing reason,” Rick said.

“Every death is a tragedy, even if the cycle of life continues. The Earth does not condone violence.” The woman looked straight at Castle now.

Willow had a more flexible view, but Rick nodded. He’d still have to check if the coven was involved in the murder or not. Or rather, he’d have Willow look into that. She or some of her students were far better suited to dealing with fellow witches anyway, and Rick would rather have some magic backup when taking care of their murder witch.

Beckett rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you spoke with her?”

The detective continued to question the witch, but nothing more relevant was revealed, other than a lot of details about the wiccan’s beliefs and practises. Enough to confirm the motive, though, if Janet cared even half as much about the grove as Waterson, and was not quite as strong in her rejection of violence.

Judging by the thin line Beckett’s lips had turned into on the way back to the car, the detective had come to the same conclusion. She knew Janet was the killer, but she couldn’t prove it.

Fortunately, Rick could do something about that. With a little help from his friends.

*****

“No one will ever believe that!” Vi huffed, wiping sweat from her forehead. Even for a Slayer, moving heavy machinery in cramped spaces was sweaty work.

“Sure they will! It’s the only explanation that makes a shred of sense, if you discount magic,” Rick said, surveying the result. “One industrial grade meat maimer, in a van records will show Janet purchased two weeks ago.”

“It’s not a ‘meat maimer’. That’s not a word.” Vi pouted.

“Who’s the famous bestselling author here, you or me? If I say it’s a word, it’s a word!” Rick countered while making sure the remnants of the liver were spread inside the contraption. “Anyway - they’ll buy the story because they’ll make it up themselves.”

It wasn’t as if Janet Farwright would be around to tell them otherwise. She’d have a tragic accident trying to dispose of the van.

“Why all the fuss anyway? We could just let the witch disappear. One unsolved case, among dozens.” Vi climbed out of the van.

“People wouldn’t know what happened. They’d be wondering if she really was guilty, or just another victim. Insurances, authorities… lots of people would be wasting their time, time better spent helping others. And it wouldn’t be just,” Rick said. “This way, the case is solved, the right way.”

“Yeah… by fooling everyone.” Vi didn’t sound too convinced, but she stopped griping. Too many people knowing about the supernatural, too many fearing the Forces of Darkness, could wake up entities no one, not even the vampires and other ‘normal’ demons, wanted around. Dealing with that mess in L.A. had showed that. Though he had a feeling that sooner or later, Beckett would have to be informed. She was just a bit too good at her job.

“Alright, let’s ditch them!”

A bit of a shove, and the van started to roll down towards the river.

*****

“... and while trying to get rid of the machine and van she had used to kill her aunt, she had an accident, and drowned. We found the security camera spoofers too, that gave her the window of opportunity to murder her,” Beckett said while clearing her ‘Murder Wall’ of the files from the Farwright case.

Rick hated himself right then, but he had to ask: “But why did she do it that way? Why not simply stage a robbery gone wrong?”

“Who knows? She was probably too worked up in the symbolism to think straight. But it all fits. The DNA, Perlmutter’s report, the receipts and the fake ID she set up to purchase the van and machine online… premeditated murder.” She turned to him. “So, do you think this will make for a good case for your ‘Supernatural Detective’?”

“Hm. I am not sure. I think Nikki Heat will discover that the murderer was a witch who hired a demon to do the deed because she wasn’t strong enough to do it herself with magic. But she hadn’t enough money to hire a decent assassin, so her bargain-rate killer tried to make more money on the side by selling body parts of the kill, which led to it all unraveling. I’ll probably add a long background of being seen as weak and useless by her family too. Wounded pride, maybe some jealousy, and some of her power bound in the threatened grove…” Rick trailed of when he saw the detective’s face.

“Nikki Heat? You’re giving me a porn star name?!”

“Err…”

Rick was very glad that there were too many witnesses around for Kate Beckett to shoot him and claim self-defense. Vi and the two other detectives were chuckling to the side, of course.

*****

 


	5. The Fed

**New York, May 2009**

“I do hope you’re surfing the net, and not studying, Honey. You know what I think about too much studying for school,” Richard Castle said, passing his daughter on the way to his coffee maker.

Alexis jerked, then smiled at him. “I’m not studying for school, Dad!”

She sounded honest, but her smile had that slightly forced quality to it that told Castle she was not entirely truthful. Ah, youth… if he had had the internet when he was her age… well, he probably wouldn’t have finished school. Still, he wouldn’t let the rare opportunity to embarrass his studious daughter pass by. So while his mug was getting filled drop by drop, he took a peek at his daughter’s notebook screen. “So… what kind of non-school stuff are you reading? The latest news on Take … ‘The breeding habits of Bezoars’? Alexis!”

His daughter pushed her chin up and met his eyes stubbornly. “Dad! That’s a violation of my privacy!”

“Why are you reading this, and not something a girl your age would want to hide from her wise parents?” Why was his daughter studying a tome from the finally restored and now fully digitalized Watchers Library?

“Why wouldn’t she, since she hasn’t even one wise parent?” Martha Rodgers swept into the kitchen area and stole his mug before he could answer. Without coffee, he really was too handicapped. “Other parents would be glad their children are interested in their work, instead of trying to rebel, kiddo. I certainly would have been so very pleased if you had shown such interest in theatre.” With that she took a sip from his coffee, then proceeded to murder the taste out of it with more sugar and milk than any self-respecting mug of coffee should suffer.

“You would have liked me to serve as your rehearsal partner without bribes, you mean, Mother,” he retorted. Then he turned to his daughter who was trying to slip away. “We’ve not yet finished our talk, young lady!”

Alexis froze, and turned back to face him, a mulish expression on her face. “I am reading this because I want to follow in your footsteps, Dad. Giles and Mum gave me full access to the online library.”

“I honestly doubt Rupert was able to access it himself, much less give anyone else access, given his view of those ‘horrible machines’, as he calls computers,” Rick said while taking his second-favorite mug and starting the coffee maker again.

“He delegated that.” Alexis made a dismissive gesture with her hand. She looked so much like the stereotypical teenager who knew everything better than her parents right then, Rick almost sighed. “Dad, I am the responsible one in this family. The only one. And learning about our family trade is the responsible thing to do.”

Rick opened his mouth to refute that statement - he certainly was anything but responsible - but she cut him off. “Besides, would you rather I spend summer in London with Mum?”

Rick knew when he was beaten, but he didn’t want to admit defeat yet. But before he could present another argument, he was interrupted yet again.

“London’s great!” A cheerful voice sounded from the door. Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley had arrived. “They have a much more reasonable drinking age, great shops, and greater clubs!” New York’s resident Slayer announced as she waved at them, and went right past them to pillage their fridge. A Slayer’s appetite was be a terrible thing to behold.

Rick didn’t have to look at his daughter to know she was smiling triumphantly - she knew that for all his claims to the contrary, Rick didn’t really want her to live it up like other teenagers. Especially not the vampire slaying, hard partying kind of teenagers.

But he wasn’t certain that studying to become a Watcher was any better. Especially since that generally led to working with those aforementioned teenagers.

He was aware that all three redheads in his life were waiting for him to say something. Fortunately, he was saved by his smartphone ringing.

“We’ve got a case!”

*****

Long experience had taught Castle not to let a Slayer’s driving faze him. It was like with certain predators - you couldn’t show fear. Still, appearances had to be maintained. “You know, it’s not exactly an emergency. Dead bodies don’t get up and walk away if you’re late.” He waited a second, just enough for Vi to start contradicting him, before he added: “Not in daylight, at least.”

The pout and glare she shot at him made the next two turns taken at just this side of a safe speed - for Slayers - worth it, in his opinion. And he learned a new curse from that gentleman they had almost run over.

“You already had two!” Rick said, smacking at the hand that tried to reach for the doughnut box they had bought on the way.

“I’m a growing girl!” she protested.

“You were a growing girl. Years ago,” he said, then hastily added: “Now you’re a young woman,” when she growled at him. Slayers. If they lost at words, they started with the threats. Two could play that game, though. “Nun. Convent. Dumpy.”

“You already wrote that book.” She wasn’t impressed.

“I could retcon it. Revise the book.”

“Too much work,” Vi claimed, with a confident smirk.

Damn. She knew him well. “There’s still Virginia.”

“Virginia?” Now he had her attention.

“The superhuman hot chick working with Nikki Heat. What do you think about making the two a couple? No, making Virginia lust after Nikki, while Nikki is not interested?”

The horrified stare told him he still got some leverage on his Slayer. Apart from being her Watcher, of course. And the one paying her bills. The things one had to do to keep the world safe and saved!

“Detective Beckett would kill you. You barely survived naming her character,” Vi said with a smug grin after she had parked the Shelby.

“Don’t forget to leave the gun in the car,” he told her, getting out. He didn’t tell her to keep her blades and stake in the car - as Xander had taught him, you never gave an order you knew wouldn’t be obeyed. With Slayers, there were a lot of those to mind.

“Yes, Dad. I’ll be a good girl for Detective Tightass.”

“Vi!”

“What?”

He rolled his eyes. And Martha said he’d never grow up. She never said this to or about Vi, of course.

*****

“We’re bringing gifts!” Rick announced as he and Vi approached the crime scene. “Get them before Vi does!” he added, presenting the doughnut box. His inspiration for Nikki Heat turned her head towards him, an annoyed expression on her face. Not as annoyed as she used to have, though, like right after she had found out about the character he was working on with her as a role model. And not as annoyed as the one she sent at Vi. Castle was making progress!

Detectives Esposito and Ryan were less stand-offish, or simply hungrier, and quickly came over to greet Rick and Vi, and pick the tastiest doughnuts for themselves. Rick noted with some amusement that Esposito picked Vi’s favorite, and missed her frown. Ah, the perils of not paying attention to the object of your affection!

Rick himself walked over to Beckett, who was crouching next to a mangled corpse. He couldn’t help but notice how her jeans were perfectly molded to her curves. ‘Detective Tightass’ indeed. But he was rather certain that if he used that particular nickname in the book, he would end up regretting it very much. “Doughnut?” He smiled at her, and at the medical examiner, Lanie.

“Thank you!” Lanie picked one and ate it. Castle privately wondered if she had yet been introduced to a certain set of rules by Perlmutter. He’d have to ask the old man next time they met.

Castle took one for himself, and sent a warning glare at Vi, who was already trying to sneak up on him, before offering the box to Beckett again.

This time she took one - as he had expected. She wouldn’t want to look ‘weak’ when everyone else was snacking, undisturbed by the presence of a dead body lying in a pool of blood.

“Pretty bloody. That wasn’t a vampire,” Rick said, looking it over. “And the wounds are all wrong for a werewolf.”

Lanie giggled, but Rick couldn’t tell if it was at his comments, or at Becket’s expression. He had timed his words so she had her mouth full, after all.

She hastily swallowed the doughnut, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Castle! Can you be serious for a minute? This is a murder, not a scene from ‘Against the Wild’!”

“You’re read that? Wow, I thought only hardcore Castle groupies did. I mean… werewolf packs roaming Scandinavia, led by the cursed lover of a viking princess?” Castle smirked, even more so when he noticed a faint blush. Probably equal parts embarrassment and rage.

Beckett turned to Lanie, who was stifling her own giggles. “So, what can you tell us?”

“He was killed by five curved blades ripping out his throat and cutting through the artery there. Death by blood loss,” the woman explained, pointing out the wounds with her pen.

“What kind of weapon could do this?” Beckett wondered.

“A Bagh Naka,” Vi answered, bending down. Castle saw her smirk when the Detective frowned. The two women still didn’t get along. At all. “An easily concealable weapon originally from India. Also known as ‘Tiger Claw’.”

Slayers and weapons… they put the stereotypical redneck to shame. Rick bent down himself. “Or those were real claws. Bit small for a tiger, but...” he cocked his head. There were a number of demons who could have done this, but most of them were rather rare.

“A tiger loose in new York? Sounds like a pulp novel, Castle.” Beckett shook her head at him.

“It could also be a demon. Gr’krer Demons have such claws.” Rick nodded at the detective as she stood up again, then grinned when she rolled her eyes. “Or a Rakshasa, but those are supposed to be extinct.” At least none of them had been seen since the 19th century, when the Slayer had made a grand tour through India.

“Why not werecougars, Castle?” Beckett scoffed.

“It’s not the full moon. They can’t transform,” Castle answered, in a tone that made it clear he thought that was obvious. And it should have been obvious, of course.

Before Beckett could retort, Ryan interrupted them. “Beckett! The Captain’s on the line. He said the FBI wants to take over the case!”

“The Feds? Wow! This case is getting better and better!” Castle smiled widely. He would get to observe the typical tension between local law enforcement officers and the FBI first hand! Turf wars! Confrontations! He couldn’t wait to meet the special agents!

*****

**New York, May 2009**

“Ah, there you are! Agent Sorenson, this is Detective Beckett, one of our best,” Captain Montgomery said. “Detective Beckett, this is Special Agent Sorenson from the FBI.” The captain looked like he had been about to add something more, but trailed off when it became obvious to everyone present that the two already knew each other.

“Hello, Kate.”

“Hello, Will.”

That wasn’t the kind of tension Richard Castle had wanted to see. Not at all. The slightly handsome but far too young for his post - he had to be about thirty years old - special agent, exchanging those kind of meaningful looks with the smart and sassy detective? Who had ordered a romantic rival this early in the book?

“I see you know each other already,” the captain added, with the kind of understanding smile that was completely out of place, in Castle’s opinion. As was the whistle from Vi next to him.

The man in the far cheaper suit than his own met his eyes, and for a moment, both stared at each other. Like two gunslingers meeting on the main street, Castle thought.

Beckett interrupted the stare-out. “Ah, Will, those are Castle and his girlfriend. He’s an author who follows me around so he can get ‘inspiration’ for his next book. The Mayor is a fan of him.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Castle automatically shot back. She didn’t have to make it sound so dirty, he thought. Both Vi’s and his presence, to be precise. He shook hands with the agent, both of them squeezing harder than was polite. No one said anything though. “Richard Castle.” The famous, ruggedly handsome and rich author.

“I’m Vi. I’m his bodyguard and driver so the detectives can focus on their cases instead of keeping him safe and out of trouble.” Castle’s Slayer sent a dazzling smile at the agent. Rick wasn’t certain if he should approve of the comment and smile, or not. On the one hand, it made him look as if he got into trouble on his own - and Vi knew that he was the one who kept her out of trouble, or at least tried his best, at least nine times out of ten! On the other hand, if Vi seduced the agent, then… he caught Beckett’s stony expression at the blatant flirting of Vi. Or maybe the implication that she couldn’t solve a case and keep him safe at the same time. Not approving clearly was the order of the day.

“I see. Well, this is a federal case, so the presence of civilians is neither wanted nor allowed,” Sorenson stated, pompously. Beckett didn’t have to look so happy at that, Castle thought.

“Murder is now a federal crime?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Kidnapping is.” Sorenson stared at him.

“The victim was kidnapped? Or a kidnapper?” Castle asked. If this was related to a sacrifice…

“That’s classified information, Mister Castle. Which you are not privy to.”

“That’s exactly the wrong thing to say to him,” Vi shook her head. “You have to make it sound boring, not restricted if you want him to stop prying.” She sent another beaming smile at the agent.

Castle shot her a glare, and another when he noticed Beckett nodding as if she was taking notes. _That_ was classified information his Slayer was spilling. Classified and personal!

“How about I make it sound like a prison term?” Sorenson apparently had no sense of humour. “Don’t interfere with my case, Mister Castle. Do you understand?”

The agent might have looked intimidating to a lesser man, but Rick had met the First Evil in person, and lived to tell the tale. And make a lot of money with it. Insecure younger men with not quite as well-tailored suits as his own didn’t really rate as a threat. He smiled sweetly at the man. “I understand perfectly.” He turned to leave.

“Does that mean I have to leave as well?” Vi asked, pouting.

“Yes.”

“No!”

Beckett and everyone else glared at Esposito, who looked embarrassed at his outburst. Castle rolled his eyes. “Come on, Vi. We’ll look for inspiration elsewhere while the good agent solves this case. Shouldn’t take longer than six months or so, I think.” He didn’t understand why both Beckett and Sorenson looked like he had just slapped them.

*****

“Please tell me he’s a demon and you can slay him!” Castle said as soon as he and his Slayer were alone in the elevator.

“Sorry, Rick. He doesn’t twig that way to me.” Vi grinned. “So… will you call in a favor and get the agent off the case?”

Rick shook his head. “I would never abuse the Council’s influence for such petty reasons.”

“Rupert still hasn’t forgotten the boyfriend incident, hm?” Vi grinned.

Castle sent her a dark look. “Any father would want to know more about his daughter’s first boyfriend.” The boy in question had had a rap sheet, after all. Egging a neighbour’s house was not to be taken lightly!

Vi kept grinning. “Are we off the case then?”

“Of course not. It could be a demon behind this. We need the name of the victim, and as many details as we can get,” Rick casually said. “Don’t get caught this time, please. Unlike criminals, you can’t beat up the cops.”

“Of course I can; you just don’t want me to!” Vi pouted at him.

Castle huffed. Slayers! Although that sounded a lot like Alexis’s influence to him.

*****

“The dead guy was Manish Kaur, a tourist from India. He’s the suspect in the kidnapping of Clarice Mattu, the one year old daughter of Ajeet and Becky Mattu. The father is originally from India, Punjab, and came to the USA as a student at the MIT. He stayed after graduation, made a fortune in the IT business, and kept it through the dot com bubble bursting. Married Becky Carlson in 2000. They live in Boston. The girl was kidnapped two days ago. Forensic evidence and witnesses led to Kaur,” Vi announced proudly when she entered Castle’s office and interrupted his work - he was making notes for a side character, a bumbling, arrogant fellow cop always trying to hit on Nikki Heat. Unsuccessfully, of course.

The Slayer sat down on Rick’s desk and let her feet dangle while she threw a small memory stick to him. “I made notes of everything I heard. And no one ever saw me!”

“Good work, Vi.” Castle smiled at her, and she preened. “Was there a ransom demand?”

“Not to the cops’ knowledge.” Vi shook her head. “They are looking into possible accomplices traveling with Kaur.”

“Why would a kidnapper come down to new York? Was there any sign of the girl?”

“They found a receipt for nappies and baby food in the victim’s wallet. Bought in a supermarket in New York,” Vi added.

“A baby. I don’t like this case,” Castle said. Too many demons were fond of babies - as a meal. Too many rituals could use them as sacrifices.

Vi nodded, looking as grim as he felt. “I didn’t smell anything demony, though, at the murder site.”

“Your nose is good, but not infallible,” Castle retorted. “Let’s hit Clark’s and see if there was a new demand for Indian food lately.”

“Speaking of… let’s stop at King Curry’s on the way!”

“Did you skip lunch?” He wouldn’t have expected Vi to. Slayers were like bottomless pits, and he had the credit card receipts from her expenses to prove it.

“Yes?” She tried to sound innocent again.

She didn’t, then. He sighed. “You know, most female Watchers consider a Slayer’s ability to pig out without gaining weight the greatest injustice on earth.”

The wide smile of Vi showed she was all too aware of that fact. He wondered what Beckett would think about it. And if she had already noticed just how much Vi ate compared to everyone else at the precinct.

A jealous Beckett would probably look cute.

*****

Clark’s was a bust. Vi got to slay a demon who got too cocky - a new arrival, apparently - but there were not even rumours of Indian demons around, or any of the other kind known to eat babies. With no other supernatural lead to chase, Castle and his Slayer were checking the more esoteric weapon shops. There were a number of legends of cursed weapons transforming the wielder into a beastman, or a madman.

‘Cadbury’s Antiques’ was one of the shops selling all kinds of weapons. Despite the name it sold both old and new weapons, as well as the odd magical one. Ray, the proprietor, beamed at them when they entered. “Rick! Vi! Long time no see!”

“I remember paying for a claymore last month,” Rick commented while shaking hands with the burly older man.

“As I said, long time no see.” Ray grinned.

Vi had waved in greeting and was already studying the numerous exotic blades displayed on the left side wall.

“I’ve got some new pieces this week,” Ray added with a sly grin.

Castle reminded himself that he was rich. He could afford to reinforce the floor of Vi’s apartment, to handle the metric ton of steel in sharp and pointy form she seemed bent on accumulating. The way she was fondling a saber told him he’d pay for another sword today. As expected, Vi was soon swinging the blade around like she were fighting someone in close quarters. As if she hadn’t enough blades already! At least she didn’t collect shoes as well, unlike Buffy.

Sighing, he turned to Ray. “It looks like you’ll make another sale today.”

Ray was all smiles. “It’s a very good blade. Toledo steel. 18th century. According to its history, it was used at Trafalgar.”

“Nifty. While Vi’s getting acquainted with her new love, I wanted to ask if you sold any bagh nakas lately.”

“Tiger claws? I sold a pair a week ago. Antiques, but nothing special,” Ray answered. “I didn’t test them myself though.” So they could have been magical, or cursed.

The door opened and they heard a gasp and a curse together with the door’s chime. Turning around, Castle groaned at the sight.

Detective Beckett was standing on the threshold, staring at the saber Vi had just executed a lunge with. The razor sharp blade was blocking her way, rather close to her throat. Behind the woman, Sorenson had his hand under his jacket.

“Oops. I didn’t see you. Sorry, I was just testing my new saber,” Vi said innocently.

The look on Beckett’s face told Castle that she would make Vi feel sorry indeed. Well she could try - he was the girl’s Watcher, and he only occasionally succeeded. Then the detective spotted him, and he just knew he’d get the blame.

Story of his life.

*****

**New York, May 2009**

“What are you doing here?” Beckett was livid, and it seemed not just because Vi had greeted her with a blade near her throat.

His Slayer would be hearing about this, Richard Castle promised - Vi would have heard the two coming long before they opened the door, so this had been an intentional gesture, not an honest mistake.

“Vi wanted to buy a new sword. It’s been a month since she got the last, after all,” Castle answered. Judging by the darkening expression on the two cops - one cop, one fed, he corrected himself - that didn’t help.

“I told you: I won’t tolerate interference with this case!” Sorenson growled. Touchy, probably compensating for something, Castle thought. Or hoped.

“Interference?” Rick did put as much innocent confusion into his voice as possible. “We’re regulars of this fine shop. You can ask Ray.”

“Yes. Rick’s purchases put my daughter through college,” Ray cut in. “The girl knows her blades. They’re some of my best customers.” The unspoken ‘don’t hassle them’ was clearly understood.

Vi nodded emphatically. “I’ve got a great sword collection. I’d gladly show it to you, Agent Sorenson.”

The agent in question blinked at her, then apparently decided to ignore the redhead’s flirting. Castle had seen that before - some men simply couldn’t handle a Slayer’s attitude. They were used to be the hunter, not the hunted.

“Her insurance premiums are about to rise past the mortgage payments on her flat,” the author added. Vi smiled as if that was a good thing.

Beckett’s glare shifted from Rick to Vi and back before the detective addressed Ray. “We’ve got a few questions about a special weapon you might have sold. But we can wait until Castle bought a new toy for his girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Castle answered. “Are you sure? Vi hasn’t finished browsing. Between testing each blade, and picking one, and whining about not getting two…” he dodged the elbow he knew was coming at that barb “... this could take another hour or two.” Which was only slightly exaggerated.

“Can we speak to you privately, sir?” Sorenson apparently hadn’t any patience. Go figure. Rick almost shook his head.

“We can go to the back room. But please do not touch any of the blades there. The oil on your skin could damage them.” Ray gestured, and then stepped behind the counter.

Castle smirked at the expression on the agent’s face as the man walked past him, then made a ‘who, me?’ face at Beckett’s glare. Once the two had disappeared into Ray’s back room, Castle and his Slayer chuckled. Then Vi did some more test swings and Castle looked at a display of 19th century hunting knives.

Beckett and Mr. FBI emerged from the back after a few minutes. The detective narrowed her eyes at Castle while Sorenson turned to Ray. “Thank you for your cooperation. I have to remind you though that sharing any of the information you have given us with anyone else is not permitted and can lead to charges brought up against you.”

“Oh, please!” Rick sighed theatrically. “If you are so worried about us forcing our friend to tell us anything about this so-called case of yours, you can stay until we pay for Vi’s new toy and leave.”

The agent looked like he was considering it, but Beckett rolled her eyes and nudged him. Far too familiar, Castle thought with a frown. Vi, of course, found it amusing.

Once they had left, Castle’s Slayer grinned. “They’re off to check on the man who bought the pair of bagh nakas, Raj Godara. I’ve got the address as well.”

“If that’s a cursed weapon, they’ll be in danger.” Castle sighed.

“It didn’t look like it, but I didn’t exactly test it,” Ray said. “The chance of a cursed weapon reaching me without triggering on the way is very low though. What are the chances it would happen twice to me?”

“A lot higher than you might think, given my experience.” Castle grumbled. Sometimes he wondered if he had picked up a curse in Sunnydale.

“It’s Rick’s fault then,” Vi declared, still swinging her new saber around. As usual, his glare didn’t impress her at all.

He quickly grew serious though. “Let me pay for your new piece, then follow the agent and the detective, in case they find a beastman or berserker. But please, do not get caught.”

“Have I ever been caught?” Vi grinned impishly. When Castle opened his mouth, she added: “Caught and not gotten away, I mean.”

And with that the Slayer was off.

Castle rubbed his forehead. “I’ll look into curses, I guess. And sacrifices.” He looked at Ray.

The burly man shook his head. “I haven’t sold a sacrificial dagger in months.”

Just as Castle was about to leave, his phone beeped. He read the message, and frowned. ‘GO STR8 HOME NO RISK W/O ME’? Did Vi think he couldn’t take care of himself? He had been hunting vampires when she had still been in pre-school!

And now he felt old. And the need to buy something expensive to compensate. Good job, Rick, he told himself.

*****

Vi returned in the evening, right on time for dinner - Castle’s ‘Lasagna Surprise’. Which he still felt was an unfair and misleading name, given that that particular surprise had only happened once, but his redheads had outvoted him. Women!

While the redheaded Slayer wolfed down an entire casserole by herself - Castle’s family had vetoed his idea to simply replace her plate with the casserole dish as well, Alexis had even scolded him for not having any manners, as if Vi was showing much manners right now - she reported: “Well, it was quite anti-climatic. The guy wasn’t at his job - he’s a bouncer in a bar catering to Indian immigrants. A co-worker told the cops that Raj had told him about planning to enter an illegal pit fighting circuit, but he thought it was just empty boasting. He wasn’t in his flat either, hadn’t been there in days. But your dear Detective found a garotte in the flat.”

“Thuggees?” Alexis asked.

Castle frowned at the reminder that his innocent angel was getting a bit too worldly. “They revered Kali. If the man is planning to sacrifice the baby… I guess we’ll have to check out this pit fighting rumours.” He pressed his lips together. This case was looking uglier and uglier.

“The cops got three names for possible locations. One of them is the ‘Delhi Dancing’.” Vi smiled in anticipation as she mentioned the not-quite demon bar.

Castle remembered their last visit. His leg had taken a month to heal up. He looked sternly at his Slayer. “This time, don’t piss off the half-snake bouncer!”

“Cross my heart and hope to die, boss!” Vi raised one hand while she shoveled more pasta in her mouth with the other.

“That’s what I am afraid of!” Castle sighed.

*****

“I thought you promised not to piss off the bouncer!” Castle yelled while ducking under debris sent his way by Vi slamming a half-snake demon into a rather fragile table.

“I didn’t! This is the pit fighting champion!” the redhead answered. “And he attacked before I had said anyoof!” Vi was cut off when the demon’s tail slammed her into the back wall, cracking the plaster there.

On second thought, maybe they shouldn’t have taken the sewer entrance. But he’d never have gotten in through the normal entrance wearing his Ack Pack. Who’d have expected that there was an illegal pit fighting pit in the basement with direct sewer access? Didn’t the demons know about security and hygiene? Castle brough his flamethrower to bear on a pair of demons slithering towards him. “That’s far enough!”

They didn’t listen. They never did. Though maybe those demons didn’t understand English. He pulled the trigger. They understood burning fuel well enough though, and hissed and screamed as they thrashed around, tails slapping each other as they tried to put out the flames. It didn’t work.

Meanwhile, Vi had jumped back into the fray and was pounding the larger demon. He opened his mouth, baring impressive fangs dripping with poison, but the Slayer was prepared and jammed a piece of wood from the broken table into the monster’s mouth. His frustrated screams were quite a bit muffled afterwards.

“We need one of them alive!” Castle yelled, and stepped closer to help his Slayer. Unfortunately, he had misjudged the reach of the demon’s tail and found himself swatted aside and slammed into a wall, shoulder first. “We might not need that particular demon alive!” he shouted, in pain.

“Roger!” Vi yelled back and kicked the demon into the chest. It fell down, and before it could recover, Vi had drawn her Glock and put half a dozen rounds into its head. It took half a minute to stop thrashing around, even with half its head gone.

Castle checked his shoulder - why did they always hurt the same one? - and stood up again, groaning. He might be getting a bit too old for this. Vi was already moving towards the doors to the side. “Throw the burning ones down into the pit first! We don’t want to set fire to the house.”

Vi sent him a glance that showed she didn’t understand why they shouldn’t set fire to the demon-infested building, but complied. Two kicks later, the smoking snake corpses were in the pit.

One door revealed a room with a small altar to Kali and several pots. Vi sniffed the dried blood on it. “Not fresh enough for the kidnapping.”

Castle nodded, and opened a pot. The stench of rotten meat made him close it at once, and he fought not to hurl. Maybe setting fire to the whole building wasn’t a bad idea. The visitors in the bar above them surely would get away in time.

The next room had a very soft but oddly stained carpet, and scented candles and cushions spread out through it. Castle was puzzled until Vi sniffed the air and grimaced. “Ew. This smells like a Snake Demon mating chamber!”

Castle looked at what he was standing in, and cursed. Those shoes had been expensive! Then he cursed again - he had just sounded like Buffy in his head! “Why would you know how a Snake Demon mating chamber smells?”

“Well, there was this time I was with Faith, and we surprised one of them mating…” Vi started to explain.

“Too much information, Vi!” He held up his hand and shuddered. One more reason to make sure Faith never, ever got to teach Alexis anything.

Their exploration of the remaining storage room - where first aid supplies as well as spices and sauces were found, a rather weird combination even for demons - was interrupted by someone pounding on the door that led to the stairs to the not quite demon bar above them. He was shouting something in Hindi, probably - Castle wasn’t certain. He could read a bit of Sanskrit, to decipher some prophecies, but not Hindi. Maybe it was Punjabi instead. Vi looked as lost as he was.

Both clearly understood the “NYPD! You’re under arrest!” though. Beckett’s voice. From the stairs. Castle looked at Vi and nodded.

While the sounds of a brief struggle were heard through the fortunately sturdy door, Vi dropped the third snake corpse into the pit, and then Castle emptied his flamethrower into it, before setting it afire.

It had been an ugly bar anyway. Unsavory too.

*****

The next morning, Castle and Vi headed to the Precinct again. With their latest lead turning out to be a literal dead end - through no fault of them, of course - they needed a bit more information. It shouldn’t be too hard for Rick to serve as a distraction for Vi. At least that was the plan. If it failed he hoped the gourmet doughnuts and bear claws would serve as a bribe to avoid bodily harm. His shoulder and face were still hurting from last night.

Agent Sorenson didn’t glare at him, but had such a smug grin on his face while looking so tired, Castle feared the worst. Doubly so when he spotted Beckett in a similar condition. “Ah, Mister writer. I am pleased to inform you that despite your meddling, we solved the case and saved the baby.”

“You solved it?” Castle blinked. How had they managed that?

“Don’t look so surprised, Castle!” Beckett cut in. “We’re professionals, after all.”

“Wow. So, who was behind it?” Maybe they had been mind-controlled. Some demons could do that.

“Apparently, an uncle of the father of the baby was involved in a crime in India, and needed money to pay off the victim, and possibly the local law enforcement officers as well. Money Mattu didn’t want to give to him, so he opted to send a relative of his, Manish Kaur, to kidnap the child. But the kidnapper’s contact here, Raj Godara, turned out to be untrustworthy and greedy, and wanted the ransom money himself. It came to blows, and Godara killed Kaur, then took the baby to his step-sister. Everyone involved has been arrested,” Sorenson smugly explained. Castle felt relieved - that explained why Sorenson and Beckett were looking so tired and rumpled.

Still, he couldn’t let such an opening slip by. “You arrested the baby? Wow, that’s harsh. Was she an accomplice?”

Sorenson snapped: “Don’t be an idiot! We saved the baby and arrested everyone else!”

“Ah. That’s… a good thing, but rather boring.” Boring was good, of course, if it meant less deaths.

“What’s with your face?” Beckett stepped closer, narrowing her eyes. “Where did you get those bruises?”

“Would you believe a Snake Demon slammed me into a wall?” Castle smiled at her. She cared!

“No. I would believe you meddled in this case, and got into trouble looking for a pit fighting ring!” Beckett said, smiling far too sweetly. Vi giggled, but then Beckett added: “I guess it was past your bodyguard’s bedtime?”

“It’s not my fault!” The Slayer bristled with indignation.

“I fell down the stairs,” Castle interrupted before the situation could escalate. Sorenson and Beckett exchanged smirking glances.

“A likely story. So, it looks like you’ll not be able to use this case for your book, Castle,” the Detective stated with a faint smile.

“Oh, I’ll just have it involve Kali-worshipping Half-Snake Demons who run illegal pit fights.” Rick smiled while Beckett shook her head. Sorenson muttered something Castle didn’t catch, but judging by the frown on Vi’s face, it hadn’t been complimentary or funny. “I am still wondering where to insert the undercover stripper scene though.” As Beckett opened her mouth in outrage, he quickly added: “Using the bumbling male undercover FBI agent, of course.”

Sorenson looked so shocked, Castle was sure even the Detective was smiling behind the hand covering her face.

*****

 


	6. The Sword Murderer

**New York, June 2009**

“So, how goes the hunt for the elusive smart, sexy and sassy NYPD Homicide Detective?”

Richard Castle looked up from his work on the report about the vampire nest in Harlem they had cleaned out two days ago and stared at his daughter. “Do we need to talk about your daytime TV privileges again?”

“Dad!” Alexis Castle frowned. “Don’t change the topic!”

Rick pouted. “She’s warming up to me. Slowly but surely.”

“That well, huh?” Alexis walked around his desk and hugged him. “Don’t worry, Dad, there are lots of smart and pretty women around who don’t want to shoot you for hunting demons and saving their lives.”

“I see you’ve been talking extensively with Vi,” Castle said drily. “I’ll have you know that Detective Beckett didn’t try to shoot me yet, and that she doesn’t know I hunt demons. Vi’s a bit biased when it comes to strong women.”

“She doesn’t have a problem with Buffy or Faith or Willow,” Alexis named the three strongest women she and Rick knew.

“That’s because she knows her position in the hierarchy with regards to them. With Beckett, there’s still a struggle for dominance.” And that sounded far kinkier than Rick had intended. Far more interesting too.

“Kiddo, I keep telling you: Women are not a pack of wolves. Your experiences with your ex-wives notwithstanding,” Martha Rodgers cut in.

Rick looked at his mother, standing in the door to his office and wearing an elegant gown. “Says the woman who is about to hunt down older gentlemen.”

Martha brushed the comment aside with a casual wave of her hand. “On the contrary. I am allowing them to hunt me.”

“I rest my case.” Rick shook his head.

“Anyway,” Alexis said, ignoring as usual the antics of her grandmother when it suited her, “you still haven’t invited my possible new stepmom so we can vet her.”

“We are not even dating!” Rick said, aghast. To think his daughter was still holding him to an agreement he had never made in the first place!

“Exactly. If she doesn’t measure up you don’t need to struggle any more, and can focus on someone else.” Alexis smiled at him.

“You couldn’t think of a way to visit the precinct without getting picked up for truancy, could you?” Rick narrowed his eyes at his daughter, who had the grace to blush a bit.

“It’s just unfair that only Vi gets to see her, but not us.” His daughter sounded her age, for a change.

“You saw her when she crashed my book launch party,” Rick reminded her.

“That doesn’t count. We could hardly see her with the dim lighting, much less talk to her before she had you taken away for questioning.” Alexis’s tone copied her grandmother’s, but she hadn’t the casual waving down pat. Yet.

“Well, Honey, I’d love to invite the dear detective, but I fear that she won’t accept an invitation from me,” Rick said with false sincerity. He wasn’t exactly counting the number of times his casual invites for a drink, coffee or doughnut had been rejected, but he was certain it had surpassed the numbers of rejection letters he had received at the start of his career as an author.

“Oh, that’s no problem, Dad. We’ll invite her!” Alexis beamed at him.

“What?” Rick blinked, then gaped.

This couldn’t end well.

*****

“You know, Castle, most men try to hide their kids when hitting on women. You’re one of a few who try to use them to hit on women.”

Rick stared at Detective Kate Beckett, lowering the hand he had raised in greeting. The author had just arrived at the crime scene, and this wasn’t the greeting he’d expected. “Did my daughter invite you to dinner?” he asked.

“Yes. She sounded very earnest, wanting to thank me for keeping her foolish father safe.” Beckett sounded vaguely amused, or so Rick hoped.

He caught a glare from Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley, who had parked the Shelby, and must have overheard the detective. It didn’t look like Vi had been informed about the invitation. Joy. “She’s very protective of me.”

“One would almost think she was your mother, not your daughter,” Beckett said.

“Oh, you’d never think that after meeting my mother!” Castle assured her. The look she sent him was priceless. “Ow.”

“Don’t talk bad about your family, Rick!” Vi admonished him while he rubbed the arm she had just lightly - for a Slayer - slapped.

He sent a glare at her - she knew Martha and should know better! - before asking: “So… did you accept?”

“I want to know first whose idea this was.” Becket narrowed her eyes at both him and his Slayer.

“Not mine!” he declared quickly. “Not that I wouldn’t invite you.”

“You have. Multiple times,” Beckett said drily, and Vi smirked, then glared at the detective.

“Yes. But I generally try not to inflict my family on my dates until a few months into the relationship,” Rick said, taking a step away from Vi.

“We tend to scare them away,” Vi explained, showing a toothy smile to the detective.

“Really?” Beckett lifted an eyebrow and met the Slayer’s stare. Castle wasn’t sure if the doubt dripping from her voice was about the scaring part, or Vi’s implied claim that she was part of his family. Or both.

“Yes. He’s got terrible taste in women, so we often have to protect him for his own good. Too many golddiggers and bimbos around.” Vi’s smile grew wider. “Present company excluded of course.” She was acting like she usually did before breaking some hulking demon’s face.

“Of course.” Beckett’s lips formed a very thin line now. She turned to Castle. “I think I’ll accept your family’s invitation. I am sure it will be a remarkable experience.”

That was exactly what Castle was fearing.

*****

“So, what’s the case?” Castle said, after a few very uncomfortable moments had passed.

“Stabbing victim. Possibly a robbery gone wrong.” Beckett walked towards the side alley partially hidden by an ambulance.

The victim was a woman, middle-aged. Slumped over, sitting in a pool of blood. Not a Vampire, Rick thought at once. They would never waste so much blood.

Lanie was there, already at work.

“Stabbed in the heart with a blade. Judging by the liver temperature, death occurred around midnight. Entry angle means the blow came from below,” the medical examiner explained.

“Strong too,” Beckett said in a slightly strained voice, pointing at a hole in the brick wall.

Vi made sniffing noise and when Castle looked at her, she nodded. That meant it smelled like a demon. Literally.

“Well, it’s not a Polgara Demon. The entry wound is not big enough,” Castle said, crouching down to peer at it.

“Straight double-bladed short sword,” Vi said. “Underhanded stab. Probably lifted her up a bit, and pinned her against the wall while she bled.” The Slayer demonstrated the move.

“I don’t see any metal traces in the hole,” Beckett, looking far tenser than Castle would have expected, retorted.

“It’s a magical sword then. Mere bricks cannot damage an enchanted blade,” Rick said, speculating. Vi’s eyes lit up. He hoped it was not a cursed blade. Not again.

“Can you be serious for once?” Beckett rolled her eyes at him.

“We can also exclude vampires. Too much blood wasted,” Castle added. He probably shouldn’t push the good detective, but he couldn’t help it. She was so much fun to tease!

“It’s not a robbery. The victim still has her purse,” Lanie pointed out.

“The killer might have been spooked into fleeing by something or someone.” Castle cocked his head, trying to picture the angles to the entrance of the alley.

“It’s too far from the entrance, and anyone in the alley would have found the body then,” Beckett countered. “A more important question is: Why was a well-dressed woman” - she glanced at the driving license in the purse - “like Marcella Garcia in such an alley to begin with?” She pointed at the shoes. “And in those heels?”

“Maybe she took a short cut that got cut short?” Castle ventured a guess.

It hadn’t been one of his best lines, judging by the looks everyone present sent at him.

*****

“So… did you recognise the smell?” Castle asked when they were back in the Shelby, driving towards the 12th Precinct.

“No. It smelled like a demon though, but… just demon-y. Not vampire-y or polgara-y,” the redhead answered while taking a tight, too tight, turn.

“You know, the English language is not an acceptable target for slaying,” Castle said.

“We’re not slaying it, we’re improving it, old man. Evolving,” Vi snarked back.

“More like devolving. Soon you’ll speak in grunts,” Castle retorted.

“And club men over the head and drag them back to our caves?” Vi asked, smiling sweetly. “You wish!”

“I have to point out that I did get away from you in exactly such a situation.” Castle grinned.

Vi frowned, and slightly blushed, but didn’t comment further. Victory!

“We’ll have to ask Ray if he sold another cursed blade.” Castle didn’t think it would be that easy.

Vi nodded eagerly. The redhead would never oppose visiting Ray’s shop. “So… what do you think turned the stick up Beckett’s butt into a pole?”

“Your choice of words needs work. A lot of work. And a lot less Faith.”

“Of course an old man would say that.” Vi was smirking.

“Forty is not old.” It really wasn’t.

“Your new car says otherwise.” Grinning now.

“We needed a new, fast one.”

“Suuuure,” Vi drawled.

“You know, we can get a more sensible car for you to drive. Maybe a station wagon…” Castle said, and noted with satisfaction that Vi lost her grin at once.

He still had it.

*****

**New York, June 2009**

“Mrs. Garcia’s marriage was failing. She was talking to her lawyer about filing for a divorce, which would have cost her husband half his fortune,” Detective Beckett explained while pinning two pictures to her murder wall - one for the lawyer, Miss Templeton, one for the widowed Alfonso Garcia.

“So, there’s a motive,” Richard Castle said. “As a two-times divorcé, I can attest to the fact that such an event can cause violent urges.”

“Mister Garcia is quite small. He doesn’t look like he’d be able to stab his wife with the force the medical examiner reported.” Beckett showed no remorse for shooting his theory down.

“Maybe the magic sword enhances the wielder’s strength?” It was a not uncommon effect of cursed weapons, part of the legends of berserkers.

“Next you’ll mention that the murderer was on PCP.” Beckett shook her head, almost looking amused.

“A gang member on PCP?” Castle blinked. “People actually believe that?”

Vi snickered.

“It’s an urban legend. Though a bit more believable than a magic sword, Castle,” Detective Ryan cut in.

Esposito arrived. “They didn’t find the vic’s cell phone at the location. The telecom company is trying to locate it - and they found out that it was used the last time a few hours after the time of the murder.” He put down a bundle of pages covered with information about calls and cells.

“Ryan, Esposito - look into finding that phone. Check with pawn shops in the area it was last used or connected to a cell tower. I and Castle will talk to the husband of the victim,” Beckett ordered. She didn’t hesitate that long before adding him, Rick thought. He was making progress.

“Would anyone actually sell a phone taken from a murder victim?” Castle was surprised.

“Yes. Murderers are usually not criminal geniuses. Most of the time they are as dumb as a fledgling.” The detective took a last look at her murder wall before turning away.

“Ohhh, you really know my books!” Castle exclaimed, pleased. “You would be my No. 1 fan, if not for the threats to shoot or arrest me!” The glare he got for that remark was tempered by the slight flushing of her cheeks. Indeed, progress!

“No, she wouldn’t. Dawn would still be No. 1, closely followed by Willow,” Vi corrected him while hopping down from the desk she had been sitting on.

“Dawn? Willow? More conquests of yours, Castle?” Beckett raised an eyebrow. Sadly, her blush had completely disappeared.

Castle shot Vi a glare, which the Slayer shrugged off with a grin, as usual, as he explained: “They are friends of us, and no, neither was ever my girlfriend.”

“That’s because Buffy would kill you if you slept with her baby sister, and Kennedy would emasculate you if you managed to seduce her girlfriend,” Vi said, moving slightly ahead so she’d be in front of them when the elevator opened.

“Vi! I’d never sleep with an underage girl, no matter if she has a homicidal sister or not!” Castle said while they waited for the elevator.

“Dawn grew up though,” Vi said, and Castle wondered how she managed to put so much innuendo into the remark without leering.

“She did. And she grew out of her crush at the same time,” Castle retorted. Truth to tell, Dawn had pursued him after she ‘had come of age’, as she had put it, but he had been rather certain it had just been to rile up Buffy. And even if things had been different, it took a braver man than him to enter a relationship with the baby sister of the most famous Slayer in history. Additionally, telling Dawn that had been an excellent way to get back at Buffy for never withdrawing her threat against him.

And speaking of payback… “So, you don’t need to worry, you’re not the only young woman whose advances I rejected.” Rick smiled patronisingly at his Slayer. That would teach her to try sabotaging his budding - so he hoped - relationship with Beckett!

Beckett raised an eyebrow at the gaping redhead. Since the girl seemed at a loss for words, Castle used the opportunity to spin a tale: “Ah, years ago, I was one of the chaperones on a camping trip she and a number of her friends took in California. One night she managed to get really drunk, and well, literally threw herself at me. I let her down gently.”

“You jumped in your car and fled, and didn’t return until the next morning!” Vi bared her teeth at him.

“That doesn’t sound like you were much of a chaperone, Castle.” Beckett shook her head, though she was faintly smiling. “Letting your charges get drunk, and then fleeing the scene?”

Castle wasn’t about to mention that a bunch of possessed Slayers had been about to tear the clothes off him and Giles, so he exchanged glares with Vi again. “It wasn’t my fault. No one would have been able to stop that.”

“Of course,” Beckett said, patronisingly. “But really - who would name her daughter ‘Buffy’?”

“Californians,” Castle answered, shrugging.

*****

Alfonso Garcia didn’t look like a grieving widower. More like a man trying to look like he was grieving and not about to shop for a trophy wife. But at the time his wife had been killed he had been at a party on Long Island according to him. Castle expected his alibi to check out since he didn’t smell like a demon to Vi. That didn’t mean the man was innocent, of course.

While Beckett was asking the man more questions about his marriage, and if his wife had had any enemies, and what she might have done in that particular alley, Castle was looking around in the man’s apartment. He didn’t spot any supplies for magic, but the man had an interesting library.

“It’s nice to meet another man with a taste for old books,” he said, smiling, when Beckett seemed to have finished with her questions. Pulling out a tome bound in exotic leather - hellhound, probably - he discovered it was a treatise on demons from the 17th century. He noticed Garcia’s eyes widened, but that could have been because Castle was handling a book worth a fortune. Rick didn’t think so, though - the woven bookmark in the tome was on the page dealing with Mohra Demons. He almost winced - those were bad news. Almost indestructible, regenerating, very skilled fighters, and fire didn’t do anything to them but make them mad. And they worked as mercenaries and assassins.

“Yes. I am a collector,” Garcia managed to say. He was staring at the book as if it was a bomb now, so Castle was certain that he was on the right track.

“Wow, that looks like some badass demon! I could use that for one of my books.” Rick smiled and showed the page to Vi and Beckett.

“Stop rifling through the man’s books, Castle,” the detective snapped at him. She was probably mad because she knew as well as he did that the man was guilty, but saw no way to prove it. Yet.

Truth to be told, Castle wasn’t certain they would be able to prove it at all - even if they caught the demon, it wasn’t as if its testimony would be admissible in court. And not just because they’d kill it. Still, he took a picture of the page and the bookmark with his smartphone before they left.

*****

“We’ve found the vic’s phone. It was dropped at a pawnshop in Queens,” Esposito announced as soon as Castle, Beckett and Vi had returned to the bullpen of the 12th Precinct.

Ryan held up a smartphone, same model as Castle’s, in a transparent ziplock. “And it looks like the killer accidentally took a picture of himself before getting rid of the phone. The timestamp wasn’t doctored, and it’s past the time of the murder.”

“Why do I have the feeling that this is not as much of a breakthrough as it should be?” Beckett asked, narrowing her eyes at the two detectives, who had trouble hiding their amusement.

“That’s because it’s a demon’s face!” Esposito announced, and handed the woman a print-out.

“That’s a Mohra Demon!” Rick said as soon as he had taken a look.

“That’s a mask, Castle. The killer’s trying to be funny. And he is about as successful as you, meaning, not at all.” Beckett glared at him.

“No, really - I took a picture of the bookmarked page of the demon tome of our grieving widower.” Rick pulled out his own phone. “Check it out - it matches.”

Three detectives peered at his phone, and then more or less grudgingly agreed that the pictures matched as much as a photo and a 400 years old illustration could.

“If that’s a mask, it’s not one you can buy in a store, but a custom job,” Rick stated with conviction. The Council took care to discourage people from making masks that looked like real demons. No one wanted a Slayer to kill a human by mistake. One Finch was enough.

“Alright. Ryan, Esposito - track down anyone who can make custom monster masks,” Beckett ordered. She probably was still slightly irked at the two for thinking that this was funny.

“And anyone who bought the materials for one,” Rick added, helpfully of course. “I’ve got a list of shops at home, I can mail it to you.”

Judging by their expressions, they had an inkling that this would take a lot of time. Castle had seen Slayers looking less grumpy when told that they couldn’t have two expensive swords that month. Well, one Slayer at least.

“Maybe you should go with them, Castle. You seem to be an expert on those matters,” Beckett said.

“Good idea. I’ll ask around a few friends of mine in the ‘scene’,” Castle readily agreed, probably surprising the woman. “I’ll need a copy of the picture, though.”

Castle was certain the detective gave him the picture without making a fuss about evidence because she was appreciating his help and himself. Vi of course claimed the detective simply wanted to get rid of him as fast as possible.

It didn’t matter - they’d visit Clark’s.

On the way to the demon bar, Castle sent the pic to London while Vi broke a few traffic laws again - an actual mask of a Mohra Demon would come in handy to nail the vic’s husband later.

*****

**New York, June 2009**

“That the address?” Vi asked, hands stuffed in the pockets of her leather jacket as she studied the run-down house.

“According to the helpful Brachen Demon at Clark’s, yes,” Richard Castle answered. Helpful indeed - it had taken Vi no more than a few death threats and one broken nose to get the demon to spill just where he had referred a sword-wielding Mohra Demon to.

“Looks like a drug den,” his Slayer commented, wrinkling her nose. “Smells like it too, only worse.”

“Even demons need their fix,” Castle said, looking around for witnesses. He couldn’t spot any. It didn’t surprise him - humans tended to vanish near such dens. Then he took out his shotgun from under the seat and replaced the Dragon’s Breath rounds with slugs. The fire-spewing ammunition wouldn’t hurt a Mohra Demon, and buck shot would endanger Vi once she started fighting in melee. “It’s just they’re after a different kind of fix.” He slipped the incendiary rounds in his pockets anyway, in case they encountered a vampire or two. The sun was still up, but that didn’t mean some of the bloodsuckers wouldn’t be around already.

Vi snorted. “Human blood and body parts.”

“And kittens,” Castle added. When he saw the look Vi shot him, he winced. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any kittens around - he was certain at least half the budget of the local animal shelters came from his account. Of course, he had to donate when the other choice was to see a kitten a Slayer had just rescued put to sleep for lack of funds. Letting such a thing happen wouldn’t be conductive to his continued health. And if Alexis heard of it… he really should have played Kitten Poker before having a child. He still found the fact that so many demons liked to eat kittens that poker with live kittens as stakes had become a common pastime in demon bars incredibly amusing - in a completely sick way, of course.

He shook those unpleasant thoughts off and focused on slightly less unpleasant ones: How to crash a demon den. “I’ll think we’ll do it ‘the Buffy Way’, Vi,” he said, and her face lit up with a feral smile. She liked the straightforward and simple approach more than having multiple entry locations and scouting beforehand, also known as ‘the Xander Way’.

The Slayer got out of the car and strode towards the house. Castle followed, matching her stride but staying a few meters behind her. A homeless person sitting near the door watched them crossing the street. When they were about five meters away, the man opened his mouth to say something, but Vi cut him off with a throwing knife to the head. Castle saw the man’s skin change to mottled grey after he had collapsed, revealing his demon nature.

Vi took the stairs to the front door two at a time, then kicked it open with barely a pause. Castle heard rising voices in alien languages inside - alerted by the sound of splintering wood, no doubt.

A Polgara Demon, blood dripping from his mouth, roared as it stormed out of what had been the first floor’s apartment. From the smell of decay and rotten meat that hit Castle, it had been turned into a demon dinery. The monster stabbed at Vi with the skewers in its arms, but the redhead dropped to the ground in a textbook split. Castle had been waiting for that and shot the demon in the chest, driving it back and throwing it off-balance. Vi scissored her legs and swept the demon’s feet out from underneath it, sending it crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust and worse dirt. Before it could recover, she cut its head off with a short sword.

The redhead was on her feet a split second later and charged into the apartment. Castle aimed his gun at the stairs leading up to the second floor. A vampire with its game face on appeared, and caught his next slug with its head. The lead hurt the vampire long enough for Rick to slip in two Dragon’s Breath rounds into his gun. One of them filled the stairs with fire and set the demon ablaze. It wasn’t as effective as his flamethrower, but it did the job for vampires. That one flailed for a few seconds before turning to dust. More screams were heard from above and to his side, but Castle stayed at the door, glancing inside.

Vi didn’t seem to be having any trouble, she had taken out a Bug Demon and was fighting a Skilosh Demon. Castle didn’t see anyone else, and focused on the stairs again. Behind him he heard a horrible screech, and Vi gleefully yelled: “Don’t be like that, you’ve got two other eyes!” Another screech, and she laughed. “Make that one… and none!” A second after that, the monster’s screech was cut off. Literally, Castle realized, when a pale white skull rolled across the room.

“I have another Dragon’s Breath loaded,” Rick told Vi when she joined him at the door again. His Slayer nodded, and went up the stairs, followed by him.

On the second floor, a Skin-Eating Demon faced them, its troll-like face showing needle sharp teeth. “Watch the nails, it can paralyze you!” Castle shouted as Vi charged it.

“I know!” she yelled, sounding indignant, before parrying one of its swipes with her sword. The demon was almost as fast as Castle had heard, but Vi had more experience, and the narrow hallway wasn’t a good place to exploit its agility. The redhead managed to kick it in the ribs and slam it against the wall. Hissing, it tried to catch her in the shoulder with its nails, but she ducked, rolled over the floor, and came up next to it. The demon avoided her blade, but not the foot she hooked behind his feet, and stumbled. Vi caught one of its wrists before it could slash at her again, and cut its other hand off with her sword, before stabbing the now trapped demon to death with half a dozen blows.

“Ew! That’s another ruined jacket,” she said, pouting, after she realised just how much of its blood had ended up on her.

A creaking sound from the third floor caught their attention, and Vi was on the stairs before Castle could react. He ran after her, cursing, but when he reached the top of the stairs, she had already caught her prey: An Ano-Movic Demon trying to escape through the window with the help of a makeshift rope.

The Slayer was holding up the battered demon against the wall, snarling. “He reeks of human blood!”

“I didn’t kill anyone! I just prepared the meat and blood I was given! Spare me!” the demon pleaded, sobbing.

Castle took a look at the blood-spattered white apron and shirt the demon was wearing and blinked. “Did we just catch a demon chef?”

Vi shook the demon, slamming its head against the wall a few times to shut its wailing up. “Looks like it. At least this one isn’t working in a diner.”

“I told you: Never eat at cheap, suspicious restaurants. Always go for the classy ones.” Castle shook his head. Vi really should have known better. Then he addressed their captive: “The moral and legal implications of your ‘work’ aside, we’re looking for a Mohra Demon. Someone referred him to you.”

“I haven’t seen any Mohra Demon! Please, let me go! They forced me to do this, I have debts, and there was no other cho..Ow!”

Vi shook it again, bouncing the back of its head off the wall.

Castle took a look inside the rooms on that floor, spotting two huge bags of salt. “Tell me another one. If you don’t know any Mohra Demon, why do you have enough salt there to feed two of them?” It was expensive sea salt, at that. They were dealing with a gourmet demon!

The demon was whimpering, its human guise gone, as Vi tightened her grip on its arms.

Rick shook his head. “Cooking humans for demons. Lying to a Watcher and a Slayer. Covering for a murderer... it’s not looking good for you.”

The red-skinned demon started to wail again. Vi shut it up again. Neither Castle nor she liked demons involved in that kind of business. At all.

*****

“Really wish we had backup,” Castle muttered to himself. Ambushing a Mohra Demon didn’t seem like a very smart idea. Ambushing it inside a demon diner only marginally improved it.

He heard a surprised shout from the basement, followed by Vi’s cheerful yell. “Another fangface!”

Well, there were some advantages at least - that was the third demon they had caught while waiting for their prey. Apparently the new management of the diner, and its imminent destruction by fire, hadn’t made the rounds among the shadier part of New York’s demon population yet.

His smartphone rang with Beckett’s tone. “Yes?”

“Where are you, Castle?” She sounded more happy than annoyed, despite the brusque address.

“Checking out a new diner. Let me tell you, the service here is terrible!”

“Ah. I just called to let you know we got a breakthrough - we tracked a money transfer from the victim’s husband to a debit card not in his possession, which was used to rent a car and buy a dozen kittens. We’re tracking the car now thanks to the rental agency’s beacon.” Now she sounded happy.

“Ah. That’s great,” Castle said. He sincerely hoped that the card belonged to Garcia’s lover or child out of wedlock, and not to the Mohra Demon. But he knew the late cook of this demon dinery had been expecting a delivery of a dozen kittens as part of the price for the salt.

“Are you OK, Castle? I would have expected a comment about a crazy cat lady murderer, at least, or ‘kitten poker’.” Now the detective sounded as if she suspected something.

“Yes, I’m just a bit distracted by the ambience here. It’s a bit rowdy. Rough crowd, you know,” he added, a bit lamely.

Vi came up from the basement and pointed at the front door, then at her ears. He closed his eyes and cursed internally.

“Maybe you should leave that diner then,” Beckett stated, still in her interrogation voice. “Where are you, exactly?”

Before Castle could answer he heard the front door open, and what had to be a dozen kittens mewling.

“Are those kittens? Castle, where are you?” Beckett shouted.

“Oops, gotta go, Vi’s starting a fight!” Castle yelled, and turned his phone off just when a Mohra Demon carrying a basket full of kittens entered the hallway.

*****

**New York, June 2009**

Richard Castle cursed, dropping his phone and raising his shotgun, but before he could shoot, he was hit by a basket full of mewling kittens and stumbled back two steps. Vi drew her pistol, but didn’t manage to get more than one shot off - which missed the jewel in the monster’s forehead - before she had to defend herself in melee against the demon’s sword.

Castle threw the basket to the side, prompting the little beasts to yowl in protest, and aimed his shotgun, but he couldn’t shoot without endangering Vi. The Slayer was getting driven back by the powerful blows of the demon, and Castle saw to his dismay that the sword was cutting through walls with ease - definitely enchanted. Vi was deflecting and redirecting the blows, but it was only a question of time until she either mistimed her parry, or her sword got shattered.

“Down!” Rick shouted, and pulled the trigger right after Vi had dropped to the floor. His slug hit the demon’s chest and made it stagger, and his Slayer used the opportunity to kneecap it with two shots from her Glock. That wouldn’t take the killer long to regenerate from, though. Vi rolled to the side and shoot at its head, but the demon shielded its face and jewel with its arms. Castle hit it again with another slug, but off-center - blood and bones splattered on the wall behind it, and the Mohra Demon howled, but the jewel was still intact.

Still shielding its forehead, it blindly struck out with its sword, and Vi had to duck again - only to get caught with the backswing in the shoulder. She dropped her pistol with a yell of pain, and her arm started to bleed heavily. Before the monster could strike another blow, Castle shot it again, driving it back a step, and Vi used the opportunity to get up and into a defensive stance.

Castle slipped a Dragon’s Breath round in his shotgun and fired, followed by another slug, and the demon was set ablaze and knocked down while Vi scrambled past him into the first floor’s apartment. He wanted to curse at her when she grabbed the basket of yowling kittens, almost dropping her sword in the process, but he was too busy slamming the door shut.

Then it was his turn to cry out in pain when the demon’s sword went through the door as if it wasn’t there and sliced his side open. If he hadn’t been moving away already he would have been run through. He shot twice through the door, hoping to hit the demon, and fell back towards the window, where Vi was headed.

“Throw them out!” he shouted.

For a moment the Slayer was hesitating, glaring at him as if he was the monster here, but then she complied, and the kittens went out of the window, mewling in panic. Castle was hot on his Slayer’s heels, or as hot as he could be while bleeding and hurting, and managed to load another incendiary round into his shotgun while Vi climbed up on the windowsill.

The monster broke through the door, bleeding from another hole in its chest. It didn’t stop when it saw the drums of chemicals Castle and Vi had prepared to fake a meth lab explosion, so it probably wasn’t as well integrated into the modern world as Castle had thought when he heard of it using debit cards and renting cars. Or maybe it was simply caught up in bloodlust.

Rick aimed his shotgun at an open drum with one hand and held his side with the other. He was about to utter a classic line straight from ‘Predator’ when he felt Vi grip his collar and heard her yell: “Just shoot already!”

So he did. His shotgun spat fire and Vi yanked him up and out of the window, wrapping herself around him while the room blew up and flames shot out of the windows, no matter if they had been boarded up or not. The sudden movement and the recoil almost caused him to lose his grip on his gun, but somehow he managed to keep it - until they landed on the street, hard.

Both Slayer and Watcher cried out when they rolled over the sidewalk, coming to a stop in a tangled mess of limbs against the wreck of car, bleeding over each other. Behind them the building started to burn.

“That won’t kill it,” Vi said while she got up. Despite her wounds and a useless, bleeding arm, the redhead was still moving gracefully.

Castle managed to sit up, coughing and spitting out some blood from where he had bitten his cheek on impact. “No, but it’ll come close to for a while.” When Vi started towards the house, he yelled: “Stop! You’re wounded!”

She turned towards him, probably to say something about how she could still fight. Slayers were generally stubborn like that, worrying more about torn clothes and ruined shoes than torn flesh, and Vi was no exception. Before she could claim she was fine, a body flew out of the house and landed on the street. It was the Mohra Demon.

It looked like hell. Its clothes were burning, bone was visible on several spots on its skull, and what skin Castle could see was blackened and shriveled. But it was still moving. Towards them. And it still had its sword.

But it was slower now, much slower. And not as graceful - even for a demon it was hard to move with half its muscles burned off, Castle guessed. He was struggling to get up himself but his body was hurting all over, and his side...

Vi snarled and hefted her sword, her left arm still hanging down her side, useless, and met the demon’s attack. Castle, panting, could see it was a more even fight now - but the demon was visibly healing and Vi was not. Slayer healing was good, but not even close to the regeneration Mohra Demons had. They had to beat this monster now.

“Get clear!” he shouted, and Vi dived to the side. He fired, aiming low, at the demon’s feet. His first shot missed, but Vi was clear now, and he racked another round into the chamber, yelling and cursing at the pain that caused to his side, and fired again. That one hit, and the monster went down, screaming with a mangled foot. He fired again, and again, until his whole side was covered with blood and the monster’s feet had been turned into hamburger. Probably - it was getting hard to see what exactly he was shooting at.

Suddenly someone - Vi - ripped the gun out of his hands. He protested, but she was already turning away, aiming. Two more shots rang out, causing it to stop thrashing around. A short pause, then a third and fourth followed.

He was still blinking when Vi returned to his side. “I got the jewel then blew its head off. If we get the right coroner, we can cover… Rick!” She rushed to his side.

“Throw it into the house… we’ll think of a story later…” Perlmutter could handle a burned demon corpse… couldn’t he? It was hard to concentrate with his side hurting like that.

Then he heard sirens, coming closer. Vi pushed his jacket back to check his side. He yelled in pain again when she touched his wound. Nearby, tires squealed - someone was braking hard.

“Castle! What the… oh my god! We need an ambulance!” A short pause. “Two ambulances!”

Beckett really had a nice voice, even when she was shouting and under stress.

“Keep the pressure on it, I’ll get the kit from our car!” Vi yelled.

“What? You need help too!”

Beckett had to be gaping, Castle thought. It was her first time with a wounded Slayer doing the Terminator routine.

“Esposito! Ryan! Don’t stare at the flames, we need help here!”

“It’s just a flesh wound!” Vi claimed, and was already halfway to the Shelby.

Castle laughed - she finally said it! - then grimaced at the pain that caused.

“Hold still you damn fool!” Beckett all but screamed at him.

“I am not moving, just breathing,” he managed to say, hissing through his clenched teeth. Maybe he should start carrying some pain killers with him… but the kind he’d need would lead to trouble if he was arrested, or searched. Another thought hit him. “Are the kittens alright?”

Beckett stared at him. “What?”

“My family would kill me if anything had happened to the kittens,” Castle said.

The detective was laughing incredulously and shaking her head. “I think you’ll live if you can worry about cats.”

“You haven’t met my family yet,” Castle said. “You’d worry about them too, if you had.”

*****

“That was absolutely foolhardy! You almost died! You almost got Vi killed!”

Furious Beckett didn’t have a nice voice at all, Castle decided. And no manners - he was a patient in a hospital. He should be treated with more care!

“It was just a minor flesh wound,” Vi, leaning against the wall, cut in. “Didn’t even scar, see?”

“What? You were bleeding all over the street!” Beckett stared at the Slayer’s arm, which had just a faint line left.

Figures, he thought - he had a dozen stitches and what felt like a gallon of blood and plasma poured into his veins, and the detective was fussing over the girl with supernatural healing. Males always got the short end of the stick!

Apparently, the redhead was convincing enough for Beckett to believe her, and the detective turned back to him. “What possessed you to try and catch the killer by yourself? How did you even find him?”

“We didn’t find him, he found us. We had visited Ray to ask about swords, and heard of a sword a guy was trying to pawn off online. Ray said it had looked like an antique, but he wasn’t about to check personally in that area. We were discussing the price with the druggie when the masked madman walked in. That set the meth head off, and in the ensuing firefight, someone must have shot through the door into what I think was a meth lab, and boom went the building. We managed to get out, but got cut up in the process. That guy was crazy, stabbing and slashing everywhere,” Castle smiled weakly and tried to sound as honest as he could. The coroner’s reports should cover them - as long as no one looked at the corpses and other evidence before it got disposed of - or replaced. And they didn’t even have to fake some evidence - the financial trail had been enough to make the husband confess.

Beckett stared at him, her mouth forming a thin line. “I see. You were very lucky.” Doubt was dripping from her words.

Castle nodded. “I’ll promise, I won’t do that again.” Next time he’d do it differently. He didn’t add ‘mom’, but judging from her expression, she suspected he had thought it.

The detective shook her head and scoffed, and Castle just knew this wasn’t over yet.

He was really dreading her visit to his home now.

*****

 


	7. The Investigation

**New York, July 2009**

Detective Kate Beckett stared at the wall in her apartment covered by notes and pictures - her own private ‘murder wall’. The difference was that it didn’t show the facts of a murder case, but all the information she knew about Richard ‘Rick’ Castle, bestselling author, playboy and amateur detective. It could have been a murder wall, though. Not because she hadn’t felt like shooting Castle more than once since she had met him a few months ago. In the leg, of course. Or maybe in his butt. Maybe then he’d stop being a pain in hers. No, it could have been a murder wall because Castle had almost been killed during her last case. And the circumstances that had led to his hospitalisation had been the reason for this collection. The man was hiding something, something that endangered himself, and others.

She pressed her lips together and studied the clues pinned to the wall. Too much simply didn’t add up.

According to his biography, copied and pinned there on the left side, Castle, still using his original name of Rodgers, had moved from New York to London in 1989, to continue his studies. Though once there, he had changed his majors from English and History to Ancient Languages and Folklore. That explained his use of Sumeran and Etruscan languages in his books.

She glanced at the copy of ‘The Vampire Hunter’ on her sideboard. Once it had been one of her greatest treasures. Signed by her favorite author when she had been twelve. Now… well, he still was her favorite author. The man could write! He just wasn’t her favorite person. Too arrogant, too meddling, too attractive. Too rich too. He was charming - very charming, she could admit it to herself at least, even Lanie liked him - but if he wasn’t involved in something shady, she’d eat her badge.

Beckett looked at the picture. A pretty redheaded woman, conservatively dressed.

Castle had worked as a librarian and married an English co-worker of his in 1993 - Mary Wilkinson. She had looked into the background of the woman a little - Mary came from an old family, old money. That must have been quite a feat for an aspiring American writer, but as she could attest from personal experience, the man was very charming when he wasn’t driving Beckett up a wall with his delusional theories. Though the fact that his daughter was born five months after the wedding had probably helped a lot.

She looked at the picture of a redheaded little girl smiling into the camera and holding up a ‘Winner of the spelling bee’ sign.

Alexis Castle. After his divorce in 1999, Richard got got custody of his daughter, or as he used to joke, she got custody of him. An adorable girl, as far as she could tell. Charming too - Beckett had not even thought about refusing her invitation when she had called her on the phone.

Beckett smiled at the memory, then grew serious again. She looked at the picture of a middle-aged woman. Martha Rodgers, actress and mother of Castle. Castle claimed Martha was even more irresponsible than he was, but Beckett couldn’t really imagine that. As a single mother, with the father unknown, she probably had gone through a lot. Especially with Castle as a child.

Castle returned to New York in 1999 and moved in with his mother. A brief second marriage to his agent followed. It was a rebound relationship, Beckett guessed, with a spectacular divorce. It had some effects on Castle though - in the following years he started to rack up quite a paper trail with law enforcement. Six arrests in six years, but no convictions. Something one would expect of a rebellious youth, not a bestselling author and single father.

The detective frowned. Here was where it got suspicious.

The police files were sealed, which was unusual, but not too unusual for a rich, prominent friend of the mayor. But she had spoken with some of the cops who had investigated those incidents. The arrests had been too cleanly cleared. Two cases they had been related to had all been solved, neatly. Nothing to implicate Castle, despite the pressure from above indicating something had to have been amiss.

Just like her last case. She looked at the pictures and notes pinned to the right edge of her wall.

Castle and his trophy bodyguard had been found, both wounded, in front of a burning house next to the car of a killer while carrying several weapons, including a pump-action shotgun and a pistol. That would have been enough to arrest them, at least as soon as the hospital cleared them, but by then the case had been solved. Perlmutter had been working overtime, and finished his report in record time. The killer they had been hunting had died in the burning house, just as Castle and O’Malley had claimed. Beckett had seen the pictures herself. His blade had been matched to the wounds too.

And yet she couldn’t help asking herself: Why then had Castle lied to her on the phone, claiming that he was in a diner with a rough crowd? It made no sense, unless he had not wanted her to find him. And while she’d believe he’d do that to catch the killer himself, he had not tried to take the spotlight in the cases before, despite the opportunity to do so. So, what had he been thinking?

She looked at the copies of the concealed carry permits she had pinned under the picture of the burning house.

It was obvious that he had friends in very high places, not just the mayor. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to get those for himself and his redhead. And, even more suspicious, he was used to dangerous situations. Other than slipping into a British accent at times, he was cool under fire, and yet tried to hide it. She would have expected him to try to play it up, impress her with heroics, not downplay it. That was why he made up those delusional theories too, she was certain - to make him appear eccentric, harmless. And why his ‘not girlfriend’ acted like a bimbo at times.

The detective stared at the picture of a redheaded girl in a leather jacket and pants - what was it with Castle and redheads? - posing for the camera with a smirk.

Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley. A ‘friend of the family’ who had been living next to Castle since she had moved to New York six years ago - at the age of 17. The implications of such a setup were disgusting; the girl was almost young enough to be his daughter. And yet they didn’t feel like lovers, not even former lovers to her. But why else would a girl her age move in with a rich older man? Beckett would suspect a troubled home situation, but she hadn’t found O’Malley’s files.

She stared at the notes below the picture. Arrest records, as an adult. Several times, almost as often as Castle. Once together with him - and that the newspapers hadn’t picked that up was a miracle. Also no convictions. No surprise, given how protective Castle was of her, even if he tried not to let it show. The oddities didn’t stop there though. The girl was a maniac behind the wheel of a car, but drove as well, or better, than a professional race car driver, at least in Beckett’s impression. She was also the best shot the detective had ever seen, and an expert in hand to hand combat. Good with, or at least very fond of, swords too. Javier was head over heels into her; he loved dangerous women, and the redhead was a dream come true. So far she hadn’t returned his obvious advances, even though she had been flirting heavily with both him and Kevin.

Beckett rubbed her throat, the spot the girl had almost touched with her blade that time. Vi was quite cheeky too. Almost as annoying as Castle, just in a different way. How had the two met? Castle had mentioned a camping trip in California. But why would he have been a chaperone? Where was the connection? Who was that colleague of his who had been a chaperone as well?

Kate took a step back and looked at the entire wall. She knew she hadn’t the full picture, but what she had wasn’t painting a pretty picture. Whatever Castle was involved with, it was dangerous. And, if not illegal, then at least secret. If the idea wasn’t ridiculous, she’d assume Castle was a secret agent, with Vi his leather-wearing ass-kicking partner. Like in ‘The Avengers’. The British TV series, not the Marvel one. Castle even could do the British accent. Although… Vi would fit as Widow, and there was an obnoxious, rich, charming womanizing bastard in that series as well.

Kate checked her watch. It was almost time to leave, unless she wanted to be late for her invitation for dinner with the Castle family. She checked herself in the mirror one last time. The cocktail dress looked very nice, if she did say so herself. She might even be a bit overdressed for the occasion. But if she was going to dine with a rich bestselling author she might find attractive if he wasn’t involved in shady things and too reckless for his own good, then she certainly wouldn’t be shown up by his ‘not-girlfriend’!

*****

**New York, July 2009**

Richard Castle certainly was living in a nice house, Kate Beckett thought as she stepped out of the cab, but she would have expected something a bit more ostentatious. It was almost discreet, if one forgot about the prices for such real estate in Manhattan. She was quite curious, though, if the author’s apartment itself would be decorated in a less understated way. Castle had a reputation as a womaniser, and an impressive bachelor’s pad would certainly help with the kind of women he seemed to be looking for.

The large mirror opposite the door to Castle’s apartment was a surprise, though. Or not. While the detective could imagine a bimbo or golddigger using it to check their appearance one last time, it would also allow anyone inside to check the hallway for an ambush - and it was harder to spoof than cameras.

She shook her head at her own thoughts. She was getting paranoid. Next she’d expect remote-controlled weapons hidden in the ceiling, and then? Sharks with lasers on their heads? Grinning at herself, she rang.

She waited longer than expected before the door was opened by a widely smiling teenager she recognized as Castle’s daughter. She was wearing a nice but far from fancy dress, and Kate was suddenly fearing she was a bit overdressed.

“Hi, Detective Beckett! I am so glad you could make it!” Alexis Castle beamed at her, then stepped aside.

Kate raised an eyebrow at the lack of an invitation, then smiled. It was like in Castle’s books. “Do you suspect I could be a vampire?” she joked.

Alexis shook her head. “No, you’d not have a reflection if that was the case.”

“Good point.” Beckett chuckled, and stepped inside. She noticed that the door was far thicker than she would have expected. Castle apparently could take his security seriously, when he was not trying to fight killers on his own. On second thought, he doted on his daughter, and was probably worried about a kidnapping.

The flat was stylishly furnished. Castle had to have spent a small fortune on an interior decorator’s budget. The sword hanging on the wall next to the door took her by surprise, though.

The redhead had noticed her reaction, and nodded at the blade. “That’s a German longsword, 13th century.”

That sounded expensive, Kate thought. It seemed as if Vi wasn’t the only one to collect swords. She didn’t comment on the wisdom of having such a weapon ready to be drawn in an apartment. That would have been rude. Then she saw the other weapons on the walls.

“Detective Beckett! Welcome to my humble abode!” Castle, wearing slacks and a shirt, threw an apron on a chair in the kitchen area and walked over to her, shaking her hand.

“Humble?” Beckett asked, with her eyebrows raised, and making a show of looking around.

“Compared to my ex-wife’s manor, it is quite humble,” the author explained. “I try to live more sensibly than her.”

“That would be more believable if you hadn’t ensured that your house in the Hamptons was as big as Mary’s manor, kiddo,” a middle-aged woman cut in, descending from the upper floor with both grace and a rather dramatic flair. “Martha Rodgers,” she stated while extending her hand. She was wearing stylish but comfortable clothes.

Kate smirked at the betrayed look Castle shot at his mother, and at the giggling from his daughter, and shook the actress’s hand. “Kate Beckett.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet the famous Detective that has my son so worked up.” The older woman smiled

“Mother!” Castle sounded indignant. “As I mentioned before, you already met her at my last book launching party.”

“Only you would think that getting arrested counts as meeting someone, Richard. I don’t know why, though - I certainly raised you better.” Martha sighed dramatically.

“You didn’t raise me at all. And I wasn’t arrested, I was asked to help with an investigation!” Castle glared at the woman, and probably would have said something else, if not for a beeping noise from the kitchen. “Oh, the hors d'oeuvres are ready!” With that, the man left.

Beckett smiled. This evening was turning out to be far more entertaining than she had thought and hoped for. Then she noticed that both Castle’s mother and daughter were turning towards the door. She looked back as well, just when the door opened and Violet O’Malley entered.

“Right on time for the food,” Alexis whispered next to Kate.

“Hi, Detective!” the redhead waved to her, then ruffled Alexis hair and kissed Martha on the cheek. Unlike Castle’s family, the redhead had dressed up a tad. Her dress looked both too sexy for the occasion, and too expensive. Kate didn’t think she was overdressed any more, though.

They shook hands as well, and Kate smiled both friendly and politely. “Good evening, Miss O’Malley.”

“Call me Vi!” the girl said. “Miss O’Malley makes me feel far too old.”

Kate’s smile grew a bit forced at the barb. “Call me Kate then. But I assure you, you’re far more likely to be seen as too young than as too old.” She smiled when she spotted the redhead twitching at that.

“Shall we sit down?” Alexis, showing a slightly fake looking smile herself, pointed at the large couch with matching seats in the middle of the living room. “Dad is ready with the bruschetti.”

“My own recipe,” Castle declared proudly as he set the tray down on the couch table, next to the glasses already filled with wine - and, presumably for Alexis, water. Vi reached out, and he slapped her hand away. “Guests first, Vi.”

“Technically, I am a guest too!” the redhead said, with a hungry look at the snacks.

“You’re part of the family,” Castle told her, which seemed to placate her. He turned his attention to Kate. “Please try some before the vacuum cleaner inhales the rest,” he said, and handed her a glass of wine at the same time.

Kate hadn’t known Castle could cook - but then again, he was a single father. The bruschetti did look different from those she was used too. They were very good, though, and she made appreciative noises as she ate one. “Excellent,” she said, after swallowing, and smiled at her host. The wine was great too, but then, that was to be expected from a rich author.

Castle beamed at her while the three redheads reached for the tray. Beckett was about to comment on the recipe when she noticed just how fast and how much Vi was eating. “Should I be worried about the main course, if she’s eating that many of the hors d'oeuvres?”

Castle sent a glare at the redhead in question, whose innocent expression was hampered a bit by her stuffed cheeks, and answered: “No. She’s just a glutton.” The innocent expression turned into a scowl.

“Dad!” Alexis scolded him. “Vi’s an active woman and a healthy eater, not a glutton!”

Vi nodded. “It’s not my fault I burn calories like no one else.” The smug smirk showed though that she seemed to be very glad about it. Unless she was bulimic - but the girl did look too athletic to have an eating disorder.

Beckett had been a bit surprised by the number of crosses on display. Looking to change the topic, she nodded at an ornate one on the wall. “Is that the model for the cross used in ‘Winter Raid’, or did you buy it after the book was written?”

“Well spotted!” Castle beamed at her. “I had it before I wrote the book. It’s an antique, made for  the abbot of Saint Gall in the 14th century. It keeps vampires at bay.”

“That must come in very handy,” Kate commented in a very dry tone. “With vampires being such a widespread threat.”

For a moment, no one said anything, then Castle laughed, a bit forcedly, followed by the others. “It’s too heavy to carry around, it’s more of a deterrent.” He stood up. “Let me give you the tour, now that Vi is not about to raid the kitchen for at least half an hour.”

“You mean the lasagna won’t be ready until then?” Vi looked as if Castle had just announced her dog had died. Or her sword collection had been confiscated. The man ignored her whining, though, and gestured at Beckett to follow him.

Apart from the plethora of ancient but very functional weapons on display all around the flat - even Alexis had a sword and crossbow on her room’s wall, and judging by the fencing gear stored in the corner there, she might even be able to use the blade - and the four hundred years old tome on demons on the girl’s bed, the flat looked normal to Beckett. Normal for an apartment usually featured in magazines detailing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, of course.

That was until Castle opened the door to his office. “Here’s where I write my books! My sanctum sanctorum, so to speak.”

Kate had to restrain herself from gaping, and from squealing as if she was still twelve years old. The office, if one could call the large library that, was filled with books of all kinds, more weapons - a lot more - and all sorts of props! Tons of old books, with exotic covers, lined the shelves. There were dozens of stakes, bandoliers holding holy water vials, the blunderbuss from ‘The Master of Munich’, the two-handed sword that took the the demon’s head in ‘Direwolf’... Castle had even a couple ‘Vampire Hunter’ leather armor suits on display! They were of a much better quality than her own costume at home, if a tad more revealing as well.

Matter of fact, now that she took closer looks, with the exception of those armor suits, all those ‘props’ looked far too functional, and far too old, for replicas. “So, you really used actual weapons as models for the ones mentioned in your book!”

Castle acted as if offended, but he was grinning as he took up a saber. “My dear detective, I took care to get all the details right for my fighting scenes.” He demonstrated a few moves with the saber. Kate realized that he could fence as well.

“With the exception of the fake trophies,” she pointed out, staring at what looked like a demon skull on the wall.

Castle actually pouted. “I have it on good authority that this is an authentic hellhound skull!”

“Of course.” Kate rolled her eyes at the man’s antics. Who did he think he was fooling with his eccentric act? “Where did you get it from then?”

“Ah, it was a gift from Vi,” Castle answered. “Though I kind of paid for it.”

She wasn’t surprised by that admission. If only she could tell if Castle was taking advantage of an impressionable young woman, or if the redhead was a gold digger taking advantage of a man old enough to be her father. They were far too close for a purely professional relationship, after all. “You never told me how the two of you met,” she said.

“I did, actually. I was acting as a chaperone on a camping trip in California, and she was one of my charges.” Castle smiled.

“Ah. I thought you had known her before the trip.”

“No, I was drafted by a colleague while I was in California on business.”

“A fellow author?”

“No, a fellow librarian. I worked for years at a private library in London. It was a surprise to meet him in California, and before I knew it, I was overseeing a bunch of teenagers. One of the scariest experiences of my life.”

Kate raised her eyebrows at him. “Scarier than getting attacked by a crazy killer in a demon mask?”

Castle nodded solemnly. “You should see Vi when she’s drunk and hungry. Vampires run away screaming in fear from her!”

“I heard that!” Vi glared at him from the door. “You need to check on the Lasagna, Rick,” she added.

Castle frowned. “It shouldn’t be time yet...“ he looked at the woman. “You didn’t fiddle with the oven again, did you?”

“No!” Vi shook her head.

Castle sighed. “I think I have to leave you for a bit to make sure the meal’s coming along on schedule.”

“Of course,” Beckett nodded at him.

The author left for the kitchen, and Vi waved at her. “Come on, join the rest of us while he saves our dinner.”

Kate would have liked to nose around a bit, but she couldn’t very well tell that to Vi, and so found herself back on the couch, facing Castle’s daughter, mother and ‘not-girlfriend’, as he put it.

Alexis smiled widely at her, a bit too widely, Kate thought. “So, Detective, please tell us a bit about yourself! We’re very curious about the woman that is the inspiration for my dad’s new book!”

Both Martha and Vi leaned forward with eager expressions, and Kate realized with a sinking feeling that this evening was turning into an interrogation. And it wasn’t her asking the questions.

*****

**New York, July 2009**

“There’s not much to tell, really. I am a detective in the Homicide Squad of the 12th Precinct. Which you already know, of course.” Kate Beckett smiled a bit weakly and tried to ignore the chuckling from Vi.

“Yes, we know that. But what are your hobbies?” Alexis asked with an eager expression. “What do you do when you’re not hunting murderers?”

“Are you single?” Martha asked before Beckett could even think of answering.

“Are you interested in Castle?” Vi grinned.

“What?” Beckett stared at the three redheads.

“Vi!” Alexis glared at the older girl. For a moment, Beckett relaxed. Until Castle’s daughter continued. “Dad wouldn’t chase her if she wasn’t single!”

“Pardon?” Beckett was staring at the two girls

“Sure he would! Don’t you remember Becky?” Vi responded with a grin.

“She doesn’t count - she was chasing him!” Alexis said, raising her chin.

“Girls!” Martha Rodgers interrupted the brewing argument. “We’re here to find out more about the Detective, not to go over my son’s past conquests.”

At that point Beckett realised that insanity had to run in the family.

*****

When Castle returned from the kitchen, glaring at Vi for ‘almost ruining the lasagna with her impatience’, the three redheads had managed to get Kate to reveal that she liked comics and fantasy novels as well as baseball, and that she was currently single. Before this inquisition, Kate wouldn’t have expected to feel relieved at Castle being present, but even his wild theories and flirting remarks were vastly preferably to getting grilled about her personal life. Or lack thereof.

“I hope my family hasn’t been too rude, Detective. They are a bit overly enthusiastic in their desire to get to know a guest.” The author smiled at her and glared at the three others while he sat down again.

“Oh, no. We’ve just been chatting,” Beckett reassured him. He didn’t seem to believe her though, since he glared at the three again.

“She’s made it through stage one,” Vi declared.

“Stage one?” Beckett asked.

Castle sighed. “My family likes to meet my friends and acquaintances, and give them the third degree. ‘Stage one’ apparently means the time until dinner starts. Stage two is the dinner itself, stage three dessert. Or just desserts, as they call it.”

“Your ‘friends and acquaintances’?” Beckett raised her eyebrows at the man. It sounded like an euphemism for something else to her.

“Well, I do not think I am being presumptuous when I assume we’re at least acquaintances, seeing as we’ve survived a number of dangerous situations together,” Castle smiled at her with that expression of his that both attracted and infuriated her.

“Not as many as we’ve been through, but it’s a start,” Vi commented, with an overly friendly smile that raised the hackles of Beckett. “And of course you had me to help you out.”

“Oh, yes. Where would I be without your help?” Castle snarked with a glare at his ‘bodyguard’.

“Dead and buried, of course,” Vi retorted.

Judging by the subtle reactions around Beckett -  Alexis wincing, Martha refilling her glass with less than her usual grace - the redhead’s remark didn’t seem to be blown much out of proportion. And yet nothing in the police computers mentioned incidents that would fit that.

“But I might be happily married and dead and buried,” Castle said.

“Pf!” Vi scoffed, after finishing off her fourth canapé, half of those Castle had brought with him from the kitchen. “You’d be poor from all the divorces.”

Alexis nodded in agreement, with an expression of long suffering on her face. “Dad’s been a bit unlucky with women since he and Mum divorced.”

“Your mother lives in England, doesn’t she?” Beckett asked, using the opportunity to find out more about Castle’s past.

“Yes. Mary was born and bred in England. Like an English bulldog,“ Castle answered.

“Dad!” Alexis scolded him. Turning to Beckett, she forced a smile. “Dad and Mum didn’t part on good terms. Both still carry a grudge.”

“She’s very British, very stuffy, very distant. And I’m not,” Castle cut in, again.

“Oh? When I met her I didn’t have that impression of her. She was very open and friendly,” Beckett said. When everyone stared at her she realised she shouldn’t have mentioned that,

“You have met Mary?” Castle was gaping at her. “Whatever she said about me, don’t believe her!”

“Dad!” Alexis scowled at her father. Beckett thought the girl was likely doing that very often.

“Ah… She showed me how to use a crossbow,” Beckett started to explain, since everyone else was still staring at her. To her surprise, the mood grew very tense. Vi shifted a bit, and for a moment, Beckett felt as if the redhead was about to attack her - and she had no idea why. “It was almost twenty years ago?”

Then Castle snapped his fingers. “1991! The Lunarians in New York! You were the girl asking me to sign my first book!” He sounded delighted. “You were such a cute twelve year old! My number one fan! ‘Beckett, with two ‘t’s at the end’,” he quoted her.

Kate blushed at the memory while everyone smiled.

Vi smirked. “Wow, to think you’ve known him twenty years ago.” Somehow she managed to make the innocent remark sound like a dig at Kate’s age. Or maybe Kate was seeing things - no one else seemed to react to it.

Castle’s smile grew wider. “I remember your mother too. How is she doing?”

Beckett’s face froze for a moment as the pain of that loss affected her again. “She was killed ten years ago,” she said.

“Oh.”

Everyone seemed to avoid looking at her. Then Alexis spoke up. “My mum’s parents were killed too, six years ago.”

That was something Beckett hadn’t known, and the desire to find out more, to do anything but dwell on her own loss, was stronger than the shame at trying to exploit a young girl’s attempt to show compassion. “That must have been a heavy blow.”

Alexis nodded. “Yes. For a while we even feared Mum had died as well. We hadn’t received any news, until she appeared at our doorstep.”

Beckett blinked. That sounded… how could that have happened… six years ago? Her eyes widened. “The London bombing?” She noticed the looks Castle shot at his daughter. Another clue she couldn’t make sense of. Yet.

Everyone nodded sombrely, even Vi. Kate was almost reeling from the implications of what she had heard. Castle’s in-laws had been killed by terrorists. And he had assumed his ex-wife had been killed as well. She hadn’t, but she didn’t call him, or her daughter, to let them know she was alive. Instead she traveled to New York? To Castle? As much as she didn’t want to admit it, that just screamed ‘secret agent’ to her. She was glad no one spoke for a bit; it allowed her to compose herself.

“Do you see your mother often?” Kate tried to steer the conversation away from terrorism. It wouldn’t do to make them think she was prying. Even if she was.

“Not too often.” Alexis grimaced.

“Mary’s best experienced in small doses,” Castle snarked, then cringed when everyone glared at him.

“After my grandparents died, I spent the summer with Mum, at our ‘ancestral manor’. She wanted to make sure I hadn’t grown ‘too colonial’,” Alexis explained.

“And I spent years to undo the damage!” Apparently Castle couldn’t let anyone else talk for longer than one sentence without voicing his own opinion, Kate thought.

“But I am glad to have grown up in England and New York. I’ve got friends here and there.” Alexis and the others seemed to ignore her father now, a skill Kate had yet to learn. “I am not certain yet which college I will be going to, after high school. There are some very good schools in England.”

Castle frowned at that, but didn’t say anything after a glare from Vi.

Martha chuckled. “Richard was thrown out of so many schools, a dozen have tried to claim him as an alumni after he became rich and famous.”

“Bloody parasites,” Castle mumbled under his breath.

“I am sure they had very good reasons to throw him out,” Kate said, and once again everyone but Castle smirked or laughed while agreeing with her.

Castle’s comeback was prevented by the oven starting to beep, and he disappeared in the kitchen again.

“We should move to the table now,” Martha stated while she rose from her seat. “For all his faults, Richard can cook.”

Alexis nodded. “And he can even cook enough to feed Vi and us all.”

Beckett couldn’t help feeling that the two, for all their snarking and teasing of Castle, were trying to portray him in the best light possible.

She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. And she didn’t know what Vi thought about that.

*****

Martha and Alexis hadn’t lied; the lasagna was excellent, and Castle basked in the praise from everyone. Short praise, of course, since everyone was digging in. Especially Vi. Beckett was certain now that the girl had to have some eating or other disorder, since no one else seemed to consider the fact that she was eating as much as everyone else put together unusual.

“I bet you had a crush on Castle as a little girl!” the redhead said while filling her plate for the fifth time.

“Well, so did you,” Kate responded with a wide, toothy smile. “Didn’t he have to flee from you when you got drunk on that camping trip?”

“Camping trip?” Alexis asked.

“You know, to California,” Castle quickly said, looking at his daughter.

“Ah, that camping trip, yes. I remember now.” The girl nodded.

“Were you there as well?” Kate asked. It wasn’t unheard of for chaperones to bring their own kids with them, but after seeing Castle’s reaction to Alexis’s question, she was quite certain now that this ‘camping trip’ had not been a simple camping trip. Maybe a mission for secret agent Castle? As ludicrous that still sounded. But they were hiding something, something big.

“No, I stayed in New York, with Gran.”

“Ah. When was that? Some summers, the weather in New York was much better than California’s.” Kate smiled. “At least I keep telling myself that when a friend of mine calls from San Diego.”

Alexis nodded. “We usually go to the Hamptons in summer. We've a house there.”

Martha had mentioned that house already, Kate remembered. It was probably more like a mansion. And she noticed that the girl hadn’t answered her question.

“So, since you like Dad’s books, what do you think about magic?” Alexis changed the topic.

“Magic?” Beckett was surprised at the question. “Well, I like stage magic. My father used to bring me to the famous ‘Drake’s Magic Shop’ after school. The tricks there were so good, sometimes it looked like real magic…” She smiled, remembering the good times then. Before her father had found solace in a bottle. She almost missed the frowns and looks that were exchanged at the table. “Do you believe in magic?”

“Many friends of mine are wicca,” Alexis said. Vi nodded in a way that left no doubt that talking about superstitions wouldn’t be welcome there. Beckett wouldn’t have expected a girl as bright as Alexis to believe in such things. Or at least believe in her friends strong enough to take offense on their behalf.

“Are you a wicca?” She looked at Vi.

“No. But I respect their beliefs,” the redhead answered, meeting her eyes with a challenging stare.

“She doesn’t want to be turned into a rat,” Castle cut in. Again the reactions to his joke were just a bit off, and Beckett wondered what ‘turned into a rat’ stood for.

“The big bad bodyguard, afraid of curses?” She put just enough amusement in her tone to make it sting a bit.

“I am not afraid of anything. I can beat anyone, anywhere, with or without a weapon,” Vi boasted.

“Not Buffy though. Or Faith.” Alexis smirked.

“No one can beat them, so they don’t count,” the girl said, glaring at the teenager.

“With a name like ‘Buffy’, she probably had to learn fighting to survive the teasing in school,” Kate observed.

Everyone laughed, more than she thought her joke deserved. Again she was missing something, and didn’t know what. She added ‘Buffy’ and ‘Faith’ to her list of things to investigate.

By then even Vi had finished eating, and she and Alexis put the dishes into the dishwater while Castle fetched the dessert. That left Kate with Martha. “You’ve got quite a tight-knit family there,” she said, more to just say something.

“Yes. Vi fits in so well, most think she’s related by blood to us.” Martha nodded at the two younger girls. Vi was trying to grab some dessert early, and Alexis was doing her best to prevent it.

Kate decided to use the opportunity to ask something she had wanted to ask for some time. “Most would expect something else, given her closeness to Castle.”

For a moment, the other woman seemed almost angry, but then she smiled warmly. Kate reminded herself that the woman was an experienced actress. “Oh, those kind of rumours are not new, and wrong. They never were a couple.”

“She was attracted to him though,” Kate countered.

“That was a special situation. It never happened again.” Martha made a dismissive gesture.

“She stopped drinking?” Kate couldn’t prevent herself from sounding snarkier than she had planned to. The woman, girl, was almost as big a pain in her butt as Castle, and lacked his charm. At least as far as she was concerned.

“As I said, those special circumstances never happened again,” Martha stated, in a tone that brooked no further discussion.

Then Castle returned with the dessert, pursued by the two younger redheads, and they started to talk about less personal topics. Like baseball. Kate did notice though that Vi seemed to smirk at her even more than before. As if she had overheard her brief talk with Martha. That wasn’t possible though. On the other hand, she might have been able to read lips.

After baseball, a spectacular tiramisu, and excellent coffee made from beans that probably cost more than Kate wanted to know, embarrassing stories from Castle’s and Alexis’s childhood were told and talked about. Martha claimed Castle hadn’t ever reached his maturity, and Kate readily agreed with her, and time flew.

At the door, saying her goodbye, When it was time to leave, after, Beckett, feeling just a bit lightheaded, asked Alexis: “So, did I pass stage two and three?”

“Yes!” the girl exclaimed. “You’ve got the Castle seal of approval. Dad can date you now.”

“What?” Beckett stared at her.

“Alexis!” Castle gasped.

Vi and Martha laughed.

Beckett later told herself that hadn’t quite fled, she simply hadn’t delayed her departure. It was obvious that insanity ran in that family, and she was not quite certain it wasn’t contagious. Maybe Vi had been a normal girl before she had met Castle.

That didn’t bode well for her own sanity - after all, she was almost convinced Castle was a secret agent.

*****

**New York, July 2009**

Detective Kate Beckett sat at her desk, a report in front of her, but if asked, she wouldn’t be able to say anything about its contents. Her mind was still trying to make sense of what she knew about Rick Castle, bestselling author, charming pain in her butt - and possible secret agent.

It still was ludicrous, but the facts she knew didn’t make sense otherwise. They still didn’t make that much sense, but it was the best she could have come up with, no matter how much she hated the idea. She still wasn’t certain if her dislike stemmed from the fact that for it to be true, it would mean that Castle had been fooling her ever since they had met, with his delusional theories about demons and magic. But then, his mother was an actress, so he likely had at least some talent for acting as well.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, sighing.

“Was the dinner with Castle’s family that terrible?” Kevin’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“No, no. The food was great,” she said. “I’m just … lost in thoughts.” She noticed Kevin exchanging a look with Javier, and narrowed her eyes at her colleagues. “What?”

“Nothing!” Kevin held his hands up in a placating gesture, and Javier winced. She must have let some of her frustration show. Good - she could use that.

Kate stood up and walked towards them. “I’ll ask again: What?”

Kevin grimaced. “Javier had the thought, totally far-fetched, of course…”

“Hey! Don’t blame me, you agreed!” Esposito spoke up.

“What did you agree with or to?” Kate spat the words out.

“Well… did anything happen between you and Castle? You had the look of a woman, well…”

Kate cut the babbling detective off. “Nothing happened! I had dinner with his family, it was a very nice evening, with his family. That’s all.”

“So, you met his family.” Javier managed to pack all sorts of lurid meanings into his simple sentence.

“Yes,” Kate answered, rolling her eyes. “His mother, his daughter, and Vi.”

“Vi’s part of his family?” Now the detective sounded aghast. Kate knew he had fallen head over heels for Vi, but the redhead hadn’t exactly returned the feeling - though neither had she rejected him.

“Family in all but blood, as the saying goes. They’re very close,” Kate added, watching with hidden glee as Javier’s face fell. Tried to insinuate she had been seduced and left by Castle, did he?

“So, what did you talk about? Geeked out over his books, or did he talk about his art and wine collection?” Kevin asked.

That earned him an eye rolling too. “He doesn’t have much of an art collection. He mainly seems to collect antiques - weapons. I’ve never seen that many swords and crossbows in one place outside a museum.”

“He has a toy collection, and he still lives with his mother…” Javier nodded to himself.

“Trying to convince yourself you’ve got a chance with Vi?” Kevin looked at his partner.

The other man glared at him. “He’s clearly after Beckett, so Vi will look for greener pastures.”

“Or she’ll kill him,” Kevin said in a dry voice.

“Javier… are you really basing your hope on Castle seducing me?” Kate sighed. “Don’t answer that. Let’s get back to work before the Captain notices that we’re discussing Javier’s love life instead of working.”

“And yours!” Kevin added right when he left.

“I feel like I’m back in highschool,” Kate muttered, and took up her file again. Then she checked her watch. Another hour until she could call her friend in San Diego.

*****

A week later, back home, Kate was staring at her ‘Castle Wall” while eating Chinese take-out.

The ‘Camping Trip’ investigation was producing even more disturbing results than she had expected. Castle had broken his leg on that trip, that much she had found out. The yellow press had mentioned that - ‘Author convalescing in the Hamptons’. But they hadn’t mentioned just where Castle had gotten injured. Although another article in the same issue, ‘Sunnydale refugees recovering in the Hamptons’, claimed that Castle was among those who had taken in some of the ‘traumatized survivors of the sinkhole catastrophe’.

Sunnydale. The town that disappeared in a sinkhole six years ago. An event no one had managed to find an acceptable explanation for. For a while, Day TV talkshows could keep their ratings going just by inviting conspiracy theorists and geologists. Or just geologists. Who would have thought academics could become so violent?

She shoveled another fork of noodles into her mouth, without tasting anything.

Castle broke his leg right around the time the ‘Sunnydale Sinkhole’ took place. And then harboured refugees from the town in his summer residence, while he was recovering himself. Of course, he could have just been in California, saw their plight, and, moved, took it upon him to invite a few of them to his house. Quite attractive refugees, according to that picture. Strange that an author surrounding himself with pretty co-eds hadn’t made waves back then. Another sign of influence one would not expect from a mere author?

Kate blinked and took out her magnifying glass.

That girl in the background… with the red hair… Vi! But Vi was from the East Coast. She was just on a camping trip, she didn’t live in Sunnydale. Why would she be with Castle in his house, and not back with her parents? Parents who had reported a break-in a few months before. Someone had smashed their front door, and the police report mentioned a struggle in the house. Nothing ever came of it, and according to the report, their daughter was already on a camping trip when it happened. That would have been a very long camping trip then - several months long.

There was one explanation, the one everyone thought of, but Kate was now certain that Castle wasn’t lying when he claimed the girl wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t quite as certain that Vi didn’t want to be his girlfriend, though. And she didn’t know at all how she felt about the whole thing… she buried that thought and forced herself to focus to the investigation.

The break-in had taken place right around the time the London bombing happened. A mid-eastern group had claimed responsibility, and to the surprise of many experts who considered the claim a lie, the British government destroyed said group months later in Iraq, then declared the matter solved. No survivors.

A bombing that sent Mary Wilkinson to New York, without telling anyone. Not even her daughter, who thought she was dead like her grandparents. And right afterwards, Castle left for a camping trip. With his ex-wife. To California. Where he met Vi, broke his leg, and returned right after a town had vanished in a sinkhole. And his ex-wife? She was admitted to a hospital a few days before that, in L.A., after ‘falling down the stairs and landing on a poker that speared her leg’. And she arrived with a few more injured women and girls, one of whom vanished from the hospital despite serious injuries the next day. Most of them were residents of Sunnydale at the time, according to the data her friend had gotten her.

Kate rubbed her chin. She was close, she felt it. The same gut feeling she sometimes got during a case.

Sunnydale. Castle had been in Sunnydale when it vanished. Nothing else made sense. And he never spoke of it, not even when Javier was telling war stories from Iraq to impress Vi. So, either he was traumatised by the experience, or he had something to hide. And he didn’t appear to be traumatised. And neither did Vi look particularly traumatised. She was just crazy. Vi. Very good at fighting, and driving. Far better than anyone Kate knew. And she was working as a bodyguard for a fantasy author, instead of getting hired by a government agency. Unless she was working for a government agency. With Castle. And his ex-wife. And had been on a mission in Sunnydale.

Kate pushed the container with her now cold food away and stood up.

Sunnydale. The heart of dozens, hundreds of conspiracy theories. From secret military experiments to aliens and demons invading the town. The stories that surfaced after the town vanished in a sinkhole were so fantastic, even the Onion didn’t print them. But one thing was clear: The town had been evacuated in the weeks before the event. The number of victims was far too low for this not to have happened.

The detective felt a chill run down her spine when she realised what that meant: Someone had known it could happen. Or would happen. There were theories that claimed that a nuke, detonated at the right spot along a fault line, could cause such a sinkhole. Crackpots, disproved by established geologists. But what if that was a cover-up? What if the government had been aware of such plans, and had sent agents to deal with it?

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t deny the evidence any longer. The skills, the experience, the facade of an eccentric, the way his family kept talking around certain things, the friends in high places, the British connection…

Castle and Vi _were_ the Avengers.

She sighed. John Steed was hitting on her. Or rather, James Bond - Castle certainly had the reputation. How did she deserve that?

Then her eyes shot open as another, even more terrifying thought shot through her mind. If Castle and Vi were agents involved in things like the Sunnydale Sinkhole… why were they following her around?

What was going on in New York that required the presence of them?

She didn’t think she’d like the answer, but she knew she’d get it. And she knew where she’d get it.

She grabbed her coat and left her apartment. She had a secret agent to interrogate.

*****

 


	8. The Revelation

**New York, July 2009**

“I’m getting too old for this,” Richard ‘Rick’ Castle muttered when he got out of his car. He hadn’t healed up fully from the beating he had taken fighting the Mohra Demon - unlike a redheaded girl of his acquaintance with supernatural healing - and stumbling around in the dark in an old warehouse, almost crashing through a rotten floor, hadn’t helped. He had gotten away with a twisted ankle and bruised wrist - his Slayer hadn’t been that gentle when she had pulled him back before he fell - and counted himself lucky. That warehouse had to have been cursed or something. And to add insult to injury, the suspicious activity they had been investigating had turned out to have been an art project using the materials left there, not some attempt to fabricate a statue for demonic possession.

“Too old for what? Getting saved by your gorgeous bodyguard?” Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley said, leaning over the hood of his Shelby.

Castle shot her a glare, which, as usual, didn’t impress New York’s resident Slayer at all.

“You’re not old. You’re just coming into your prime. In Ancient Rome, you’d still be too young to be elected as a Consul.” Vi beamed at him. She did grab her and his weapon bags though. Castle would have protested, if his wrist hadn’t been hurting more than his male pride.

“I see you’ve been studying with Alexis,” he commented when they reached the elevator. This time she did cringe. As she should - she had been conspiring with his daughter against her Watcher.

Vi rallied quickly, though. “Did you really think she wouldn't follow in yours and her mother’s footsteps?” she asked, looking at him as if he was at fault.

“I worry about her. Mary and myself, we almost died several times. What father would I be if I didn’t want to protect my my daughter from that?” He sighed.

Vi rolled her eyes at him. “What father would you be if you wanted to run her life for her, no matter what she wanted?”

“A typical one?” He grinned at the redhead, even though he didn’t feel like joking.

She didn’t seem to think it was funny either and glared at him.

He held up his hands. “I know, I know… I am a hypocritical fossil. I can’t help worrying for her, though. Or for you,” he added under his breath.

He knew she had heard him - Slayer hearing was just that good - but other than a faint smile, she didn’t react to his comment.

They arrived on their floor when Castle’s smartphone vibrated - he had received a message. Since Vi was playing pack mule, he had a non-bruised hand free and checked it. It was from Alexis.

BECKETT HERE. ANGRY.

Rupert would have said ‘Dear Lord’. Rick hadn’t lived in England for ten years, though, and was less restrained.

“Fuck.”

*****

“Honey, we’re home!” Castle announced, as he and Vi entered his apartment. He spotted Beckett at once - she was already standing, and moving towards him. The detective was still wearing her coat too. Alexis was standing next to the couch, grimacing at him behind the woman’s back.

“Detective Beckett! What a delightful surprise at … this late hour?” He tried to add just enough of a hopeful invitation to his words. It wasn’t that hard - Beckett was very attractive when she was angry. Like now.

“Drop the act, Castle!” Beckett snapped. “I know what you’re doing. You and your ‘bodyguard’ there!”

Rick blinked. Did she… “She’s not my girlfriend! Why don’t you believe me?” Trying to distract her, he added: “And why do you care? Do I detect some jealousy there?” He winked at her.

“Drop the act, Mister Castle. I know about Sunnydale.” Beckett crossed her arms and stared at him.

Castle froze for a moment. “Sunnydale? The town that vanished in a sinkhole in California a couple of years ago?” he asked in the most innocent tone he could muster. What did she know...

“Exactly. The town you and your ex-wife and your ‘bodyguard’ were visiting then.” She jutted her chin forward. “The town you both got hurt in, right around the time the sinkhole opened. The town you and her went to, after her parents were killed by terrorists. The town your ‘bodyguard’ traveled to, after there was a break-in at her home. A break-in that was never resolved. The town she and you and your ex-wife took a camping trip to that lasted months. The town the refugees you took with you to your summer residence in the Hamptons were from.” She smiled without a trace of humour. “That town.”

Sunnydale. It always came back to the Hellmouth. Even years after it had closed. Rick smiled wryly and went to sit down on the couch. He sent a glance at Alexis, but his daughter ignored the implied request to head to bed. At least they had dropped the weapons off in Vi’s apartment before entering Castle’s.

Vi glared at the detective as if she was a demon and sat down on the armrest of the couch, ready to pounce on the other woman.

“You seem to know a lot about that town,” Castle said, casually. “Did you make a wall for it?”

“Yes.” Beckett didn’t sit down.

Castle winced. This was bad. “So… what exactly did you come here for? You seem to know everything already.” He pointedly looked at the watch on his wall. “And at midnight even. Is there a pumpkin carriage waiting outside?”

Beckett ignored his attempt at humour and stepped up to him. Castle put a hand on Vi’s thigh before the Slayer could intervene. Things remained very tense though.

“I want to know what you are doing in New York!” Up close she was even more beautiful. Passionate.

“I live here. Have been living for years.” He smiled up at her.

“Don’t play dumb, Castle! Vi’s an expert shot, martial artist, and driver. You’ve got a cooler head in a fight than Javier, and he’s got combat experience in Iraq. You’ve also got weapon permits that cover almost everything under the sun, and the place you’ve been working in for ten years in London was bombed by ‘terrorists’.”

Castle could hear the air quotes around the last word.

Her mouth twisted in a nasty smile. “And you don’t flaunt those talents, unlike everything else. Which means you want to keep them secret.”

Vi hissed at that, and Castle grimaced. Beckett was even smarter than he had thought. The detective had uncovered their secret. London wouldn’t be happy.

“You two are secret agents. And I want to know what you two are doing in New York before it disappears in a sinkhole too!” Beckett put her hands on her hips.

What? Castle gaped at her, then started laughing. Vi joined him, muttering: “Castle, Rick Castle!”

Alexis didn’t laugh, but came close. His daughter had always been the most serious in the family.

Beckett kept glaring at them, but he could see some doubt appearing on her face. “What’s so funny?” she finally asked, in a tone that reminded Castle that she was carrying a pistol.

“Ah.. excuse me, just the thought… we’re not secret agents, I can assure you.” He smiled at her.

“We could be of course! We’re just that good!” Vi added, not helping at all.

Beckett was tapping her foot - quite a feat in her heels.

Castle grew serious. He knew she wouldn’t let go. Even if she believed their claims that they weren’t actually secret agents - and in a way, they were - she’d simply dig further. They were a case now. And Beckett didn’t give up on cases. He sighed, admitting defeat. “Are you certain you want to know?”

“Dad!”

“Rick!”

Both he and Beckett ignored the two redheads’ exclamations.

“There’s no going back. Your worldview will be altered irrevocably. You will never look at anything the same way again.” Castle was laying it on thick. Not that it would serve to deter her. He could see that Beckett wanted, needed to know.

“Yes, I want to know.” There was a faint hint of triumph in her tone, and her expression matched the one she usually had when solving a case, right before the suspect was confessing.

“Rick…” Vi glared at Beckett. Her opinion was clear. Alexis didn’t look quite as disapprovingly, but she was not smiling either. They didn’t know Beckett as well as he did.

“Alright. Sit down, this could take a while.” He waved at the seat across the couch. Once she had sat down - on the edge, leaning forward eagerly - he continued. “It’s not my speech, usually, but everyone knows it.” Her eyes told him to get on with it, so he did.

“The world is older than you know…”

*****

Castle had noticed Beckett growing more and more angry as he told the story of the Slayer. She hadn’t interrupted him, though. He chalked that up to his talent as a narrator. But once he stopped, she exploded.

“Do you honestly think that just because I like your books, I’d fall for such a stupid fantasy?” The detective was livid. Castle once again reminded himself that she was packing heat. “Vampires! Demons! Supernaturally strong women hunting them! Those do not exist!”

He’d never get a better opening. “Vi… would you please lift the couch?”

For a moment, Vi looked mulish, but her desire to show off was too strong. She gripped the couch with both hands and lifted it up. With Castle sitting on it.

The look on Beckett’s face as she sank down in her seat was priceless.

*****

**New York, July 2009**

“That’s… a trick,” Kate Beckett said, slowly shaking her head, but Richard Castle could tell she didn’t really believe her own words. Her logical mind wouldn’t accept that.

“Look for wires?” He grinned, even though he was wondering, mentally, how much a drop from this height would hurt.

“Maybe magnets…” she trailed off.

“Anything metal would be affected by that.” He pointed at his belt buckle.

“Technically, antimagnetic metal wouldn’t be affected,” his daughter corrected him.

He heard Vi chuckle.

“Alright… you can set me down again. The point is made.”

Vi set the couch down, though with enough of shock that he was jolted out of his seat and almost fell down.

“Maybe there is a reason that the traditional way to demonstrate a Slayer’s strength was to twist an iron poker,” he mused.

Beckett was recovering her composure. Rick could see she was eyeing both him and Vi warily, and even glanced at Alexis with some suspicion. “What is she?” the detective asked, pointing at the Slayer.

“She’s a Slayer. A girl gifted with the power and toughness to hunt vampires and other demons. Gifted ... or cursed,” Castle added with just a hint of drama.

“That’s the introduction of your first novel. You just replaced ‘a Slayer’ with ‘a Vampire Hunter’,” Beckett said.

“Yes.” Castle sat down again and Vi retook her place on the couch’s armrest while Alexis moved to stand behind him. A nice show of solidarity and support, in his opinion. It also placed his daughter behind the the reinforced couch, in case she needed to take cover. It was unlikely, but Beckett was still visibly stressed, and Vi could start a fight with a saint if she wanted to.

“So… all your books are based on real events?” Beckett wasn’t yet back to normal, but Castle could see how she was shifting from shocked to interrogating.

“I took a few liberties in my novels to protect the source of my stories. All the information about demons is correct though.” Rick smiled.

“Victoria was based on me!” Vi grinned. “He did tone down her ass-kicking, though, to make it less obvious.”

Castle coughed. “I do recall a certain redhead complaining until I made her more formidable.”

“What?” Vi affected an air of utter innocence and turned towards Rick’s daughter. “Alexis, how could you do that to your dad!”

“What?” Alexis spluttered. “You’re blaming your vanity on me?”

“Children…” Castle rolled his eyes. “Do you see what I have to deal with? I hope you’ll not follow Vi’s example when I am writing Nikki Heat.”

“Could you be serious for once?” Beckett asked in a strained voice. Castle could see that she was clenching her teeth as soon as she had finished her question, probably to keep herself from cursing.

“Sorry!” Rick sat up straight and looked at her with exaggerated seriousness - for about two seconds, then his mouth started to twitch. When he saw the detective’s expression darken, he held up a hand to stop what he suspected would be a very memorable tirade. “I truly am sorry. But… joking around is how we cope with the fact that we are risking our lives every day. Or almost every day.”

“It’s better than what other Slayers and their Watchers do to cope.” Alexis nodded.

Rick narrowed his eyes at his daughter. “And what exactly are those people doing to cope with stress, and how do you know that?”

Alexis’s smile froze on her face, and she pointed at Vi.

Castle turned to his Slayer. “Vi!”

“Hey! I am innocent! She listened in to a talk with … London!” the Slayer said.

“And you didn’t spot or hear her?” Castle glared at her. “Are you getting sloppy?”

“Err…” Vi winced.

Before Castle could threaten her with more sensory training, Beckett interrupted their discussion. “So, you joined those… Watchers… while you were in London.”

“Yes.” They were spilling secrets faster than he had planned to, but he trusted Beckett. Or wanted to. “My first wife saved me from a vampire, and I joined her group of vampire hunters in gratitude.” That was his story.

“Mary Wilkinson is a Slayer too?” Beckett sounded surprised, as well as concerned.

Vi snickered. “She wishes! No, she’s a tweed-wearing Watcher. Slayers are much hotter than her!” The redhead struck a pose straight out of a pin-up calendar on the armrest.

Castle made a mental note to check what exactly his family had been up to.

“Those are the ‘Loremasters’ in the novels.” Beckett wasn’t asking but stating now.

“Yes.” Castle was starting to feel like one of her suspects.

Vi must have picked up on that since she glared at the detective.

“How long has this been going on? This demon hunting?” Yes, Beckett was now back to normal.

“Ah… I’ve been doing it for twenty years, though with a break of a few years. Before Sunnydale.” Rick pointed his thumb at Vi. “Since then I’ve been training and working with her.”

He was about to go into greater detail of his work when Beckett shook her head. “No… I mean the ‘Loremasters’. How long have they been at it?”

“We don’t exactly know,” Alexis cut in while Rick was pouting. “The records only go back until the time writing was invented.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, she’s not. Those Brits in the 90s? So stuffy and hide-bound, they thought our letters were a newfangled invention!” Castle snarked.

“Dad!” Alexis shook her head at him, before addressing the detective again. “Let me tell you, trying to read hieroglyphs can be a pain. And the Sumerian cuneiform is worse.”

Yes, Rick definitely had to find out just what his daughter had been up to.

“That’s… why doesn’t the world know? Why haven’t you told people?” Beckett was standing now, agitated. But she seemed to have accepted the existence of demons. Progress!

Castle pointed at her. “That’s exactly what I asked when I joined!” Well, not exactly - back then, he had been too enamored with the idea of joining a secret society of vampire hunters. And with Mary. But there was no need to go into those details. When the detective’s stare turned into a glare, he hastily continued. “It’s related to the Old Ones. The true demons. Or demonlords. The big bads of the big bads.” Judging by her expression, he really shouldn’t be using Scoobie terms when talking to adult people. He’d probably just wrecked his cred as a writer. “Anyway. Those monsters are far more powerful than vampires or lesser demons. They are gone from the world, but not completely. More like sleeping. If too many people learn of the existence of demons, their belief, their fear, could wake up one of them. Or more.”

“But… people believed in them before…” Beckett blinked. “The population explosion!”

“Yes. If seven billion people start believing in magic and demons…” Castle grimaced. “Do you need a drink?”

Beckett nodded, and Castle went and got a bottle of whiskey.

Vi smiled, showing her Irish heritage. Then she frowned. “Why does she rate the good stuff?”

“It’s not every day your worldview is shattered.” Castle filled three glasses.

“Well, I didn’t get that kind of treat when I was told about demons.” Vi pouted.

“You were underage then.” Castle raised his glass, ready for a toast.

“Wait… 2002… you started hunting vampires at 17?” Beckett stared at Vi, then glared at Castle. “You sent children against demons?”

Castle downed his drink, then filled it again. He just knew he would need it.

*****

“Why is it that explaining how demons live among us, hunting humans, is less of a problem than explaining Slayers?” Castle muttered to himself, after Beckett had calmed down and stopped threatening to arrest him.

At least Alexis had taken care of the explaining part. “... so you see, back when the Slayer was created, eligible girls were considered adults. While standards have changed since then, the Slayer spirit still works according to those archaic rules.”

He took over “And before you ask - no, we cannot keep the Slayers from hunting until they are adults. It’s in their blood. If they don’t hunt, they get antsy. And if Slayers get antsy, things tend to break around them.” Or people.

“That wasn’t in your novels!” Becket glared at him.

“I told you - I protect my sources. It wouldn’t do to give the demons information about us. We’re at war.” He ignored her muttered ‘child soldiers’, and Vi’s ‘I wasn’t a child’.

“I still can’t believe no one knows about this.” Beckett stared at her glass, not her first, then emptied it and held it out for a refill. The woman could hold her liquor.

“Well… some do. The government, even if they prefer to look away when we deal with demons. Some of the Feds, the army has a demon-hunting unit…”

“More like a demon-baiting unit. We’ve had to bail them out half a dozen times so far. When it comes to demon hunting, they are more special ed than special forces.” Vi snorted.

Castle laughed. He’d have to tell Riley that, next time they met.

“But you’re the… Watcher… for New York.” Beckett sounded as if that was hard to believe.

“Yes. I am the resident Watcher.”

“And I’m his Slayer!” Vi added.

“And you hunt demons. In New York.”

“Yes.” Castle nodded.

“Why are you following me around then, instead of doing your job?” Beckett asked.

“That’s a very good question!” Vi smiled sweetly, far too sweetly at the other woman.

“I am actually using you as inspiration for my new book,” Castle admitted.

“Yes. You’ll be the normal sidekick to the best Vampire Hunter!” Vi beamed at her.

“She’ll be Nikki Heat, saucy, sassy, smart supernatural detective,” Castle corrected his Slayer. Strangely, Beckett didn’t seem to be as happy about that honor as he had thought.

“But… you were not just following me about. You were… investigating. On your own. You were hunting demons involved with my cases!” Beckett sounded outraged.

Castle refilled his glass again. This would be a long night.

*****

**New York, July 2009**

“The last one, with the burning house… that was a demon.” Detective Beckett was putting more things together.

Rick Castle nodded. No point in trying to deny it.

“But why didn’t… the coroner is in on this! Perlmutter doing overtime? I should have known!” Beckett hissed, probably angry at herself for missing it. “And the ritual murder! That was a working ritual!”

“Actually no… I made sure that the ritual I wrote about was a fake. But the killer was possessed by a demon, and tried to free it anyway. I’ll certainly not tell any crazy out there how to summon demons! How irresponsible do you think I am?” He blinked. “Don’t answer that, please.”

“Yeah. We’ve got enough apocalypses to prevent already!” Vi tried to help. Emphasis on ‘tried’. Castle wondered how many glasses she had drunk already. Slayers were no lightweights, but they could get drunk when they made an effort.

“Apocalypses?” Beckett’s voice rose an octave or so.

“Well, technically there haven’t been that many attempted real apocalypses. That means world ending stuff. Only about… hm… less than half a dozen in the last twenty years, depending on how you count them. We just call all the rituals that would destroy a city or so ‘apocalypses’ out of tradition...” Castle trailed off when he noticed that Beckett didn’t seem to be reassured at all. Maybe he should have wondered how much he had drunk so far.

“You’re joking. This is all a big joke, right? Right?” Beckett was glaring at him.

Castle shook his head, a weak smile on his face. “... no? But we’ve got it in hand, really. We’ve foiled every attempt so far.” That should be obvious, really - the world was still around, after all!

“And what about Sunnydale then?”

“Oh. That was a foiled real apocalypse. There was a Hellmouth, and the First Evil was attempting to send its army through, but we sealed the rift. Unfortunately, that caused the town to implode. When I say I’ve seen the hell, I mean the real thing.” He’d always wanted to say that.

Vi nodded eagerly. “We kicked demon ass on their home turf!”

Beckett drank straight from the bottle this time. Castle went and fetched another.

*****

“Good morning, Dad!” Alexis’s cheerful voice sent shards of pain through Castle’s head.

“There’s nothing good about this morning,” he muttered. What had he done? There was that warehouse… and then they had met Beckett… oh, right. He remembered. To a point. Sometime past the second or third bottle, things started to get… fuzzy.

“How much did I drink last night?” he managed to ask.

“I don’t know, Dad. I went to bed just a bit after midnight. I’ve got school today,” Castle’s far too sensible daughter answered. “I just wanted to wake you up before I leave. Gran met someone at her party, and stayed the night at his apartment.”

“Well, you did wake me up. Mission accomplished. Now shoo. I need more sleep,” Castle bit out while sledge hammers were pounding his aching head.

“Bye, Dad!” Alexis waved and started to leave. At the door to his bedroom, she stopped. “I locked the pistol of our guest in the safe.”

Castle blinked. Guest? “Guest?”

Alexis’s smile was hard to read, but Castle thought she was a bit gloating, at least. “Detective Beckett is sleeping in the guest room.”

“Oh.” How could he have forgotten that?

*****

“Where is my gun?”

“Good morning to you too, Detective. Coffee?” Castle turned to the new arrival in the kitchen with a mug of freshly brewed coffee in his hand, and almost winced. Beckett looked like she should have still been in bed. Or in a detox clinic.

She all but ripped the mug out of his hand and took a mouthful. “Where. Is. My. Gun?”

“It’s locked in the safe, to be, ah, safe.” Castle answered. He didn’t think he should mention who put it there. Women were possessive about their weapons.

Beckett didn’t say anything and just kept staring at him.

“Ah… I’ll get it right away, ma’am!”

Handing an obviously angry and hungover person a loaded gun wasn’t the safest thing Castle had ever done, but at that moment he was dea… _quite_ certain that not doing so would be much more dangerous.

“Who undressed me?” And now he wasn’t quite so certain any more. Beckett’s voice could have frozen a tropical ocean. She checked the gun’s magazine with the kind of ease born of long practise before holstering it.

Come to think of - how had he managed to not only find his bed, but get into his pajamas as well? He blinked. “Vi!” It had to have been her. To think he might have put Beckett to bed, undressed her, and then forgot all about it? That was inconceivable!

“I see.” His guest sounded a bit doubtful.

“So… ah… How much do you remember from last night?” Rick held up his hands when he saw her expression darken. “I am just asking because I want to know if I have to repeat something I already said, not because I would like to insinuate that something else happened. That would have been far too cliche anyway!”

“I remember everything up to the time you started talking about a desert trip, and Vi tried to stuff a sock in your mouth,” Beckett said with a slightly sardonic smile. “Quite an effective way to shut up up, and less paperwork to deal with than after shooting you.” Or sadistic.

“That explains the taste in my mouth in the morning.”

Beckett snorted. For a hungover woman wearing the clothes from the day before, she looked entirely too fit. Coffee was truly a miracle drug.

“So… you’re now a member of the few, the proud, and the slightly suicidal people who know about the real world.” Castle smiled at his guest.

“I have only your word for it, and Vi’s display of … strength,” Beckett said, grimacing.

“We’ll have to visit Clark’s then.” That would prove it beyond any doubt.

“Clark’s?”

“A demon bar.”

“Demons have bars? Do they serve type B blood, chilled, in there, with a side order of virgin hearts?” Beckett snorted.

“No, we put a stop to that when we started in New York after Sunnydale.” Good times, then. Castle had felt like a marshall cleaning up a boom town in the Old West. Vi hadn’t let him wear a stetson though.

The detective looked flabbergasted, and Castle grinned. “And I am delighted to see you know my books so well!”

That earned him a glare, but no further comment. Point Castle!

“Not that I want to get rid of you, but… won’t you be late for work?” he asked, casually of course.

“I called in sick,” Beckett said in a clipped tone.

“Ah! Does that mean you’re stuck in the apartment with me since you can’t risk going out or you could be seen and your lie would be exposed?” Rick smiled widely.

While she was gaping at him, he heard the door open - either Vi or his mother had just arrived.

“Morning, Rick! Have a nice night?” His Slayer’s loud voice, obviously meant to make his hangover’s effects worse, rang through his apartment, interrupting whatever Beckett had been about to say.

Vi entered the kitchen, and added another all too cheery and far too loud: “Good morning, Detective!”

Of course, she wouldn't suffer from a hangover! Slayer healing was very unfair, Castle thought. Both Castle and his guest winced, then glared at the girl.

Vi ignored it and grabbed some breakfast for herself. “You need to restock the fridge.”

The detective stared at the amount of food Vi had piled on her plate. Vi grinned and started to eat. Just when the redhead had her mouth full, Beckett said: “I was planning to get you some help with your bulimia.”

While Vi was trying not to choke on her food, Castle spoke up. “Really?”

The detective shook her head, smirking. “No, not really.”

“I should have taken a picture. Or a video.” Castle smiled ruefully while weathering Vi’s glare.

“We’ll have to hit Clark’s later today. The dear detective is not entirely convinced demons exist, even if she doesn’t doubt the existence of Slayers.”

Vi’s eyes lit up. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the big bad demons.” Vi smiled sweetly, far too sweetly at Beckett.

The detective narrowed her eyes in response, but didn’t say anything. Yet.

Castle felt the urgent need to intervene before the two started a fight. From a safe distance though, he wasn’t suicidal. “So… Clark’s is like a normal bar. Just filled with demons. Most of its patrons know better than to start trouble.”

“Meaning: We scared them into behaving peacefully.”

“Mostly her work, actually.” Rick pointed at his Slayer. “She tends to break a couple demon faces on each visit.”

“Your flamethrower scared them plenty!” Vi retorted.

“You have a flamethrower?” Beckett’s voice was rising again, not a good thing with a hangover like Castle’s.

“I got a permit!” he defended himself.

“For a flamethrower?” If Beckett’s eyebrows rose any higher, they’d hit the ceiling.

“Among other things, yes. Whatever gets the job done.” Castle wasn’t about to mention the AT-4s in his gun safe if the detective had problems with flamethrowers.

“Jealous?” Vi grinned at the detective.

“Of course not.” Beckett smiled sweetly at that Slayer. Too sweetly.

Castle closed his eyes. He was going to die as collateral damage in a fight between Beckett and Vi. At least he wouldn't suffer from his hangover any more.

*****

**New York, July 2009**

Richard Castle had spent most of the ride to the demon bar turned towards the back seat, giving last minute advice: “Alright… it’s like a normal bar, just with demons. Well, more like a biker bar. Or a mob bar. Or the lions’ habitat at the zoo. Or the…”

“I get it, Castle. ‘Don’t show fear, don’t let them cow you, and if they start anything, finish it’, right?” Beckett interrupted him.

“That’s from ‘Peril in Paris’!” Castle smiled, then grew serious again.

“You said the information about demons in your novels was correct.”

“Yes, but that piece of advice was for a Slayer,” Vi cut in, turning her head to smile at the detective. “Not for a cop without supernatural powers.”

“Keep your eyes on the road or we won’t make it to the bar,” Beckett responded, baring her teeth in an approximation of a smile.

“As Vi said… that’s how Slayers tend to handle demons. As normal humans we have to cheat a bit more,” Castle went on. He wasn’t certain it was a good idea to coach Beckett in how to visit a demon bar without losing one’s life, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t take well to being told to only visit with Vi.

“Cheat?” Beckett raised her eyebrows.

“Weapons, and the attitude to use them at the slightest provocation. I’ve got to stress again: Some of them may look and act human, but they aren’t. Think large, man-eating predators. A Slayer can get away with roughing up a demon because they know she’s a predator, and will accept her dominance. A normal human? They see us as uppity happy meals on legs. Which means that if someone tries anything, challenges us in any way, we don’t play dominance games with it, we kill it.” Castle stared at the detective, trying to make her see how serious he was.

“He’s not kidding about them seeing humans as food. We needed to burn this joint down a few times until they stopped selling human blood and meat,” Vi added while taking a turn so sharply, Castle felt his seatbelt engage.

Beckett’s eyes widened.

Castle nodded. “Yes. Just remember that: Everyone in there will either want to eat you, do something worse, or is fine with hanging with monsters who want to do that. There are no innocents in there. Only demons who are too afraid to do anything, and demons who need to be killed.”

“Why do you let them live then?”

“I’ve been asking that each time we go there!” Vi said.

Castle sighed. “If we start killing demons indiscriminately, we’d have a war on hand. We don’t want the different demon clans to unite against us. And some demons are peaceful. They don’t usually frequent such bars, though.”

“But as a rule: Kill a demon if you feel threatened in the slightest way. Or just feel like it,” Vi cheerfully cut in again.

“Vi…” Castle glared at her.

Beckett was silent for a few minutes. “You mention half-breeds in your books. Humans with demon blood. Descendants of demons.”

“Yes. A number of demons can interbreed with humans.” Castle didn’t know where Beckett was going with that.

“And even if they can’t breed, some still like to try it!”

Beckett seemed to ignore the redhead. “In ‘The Seer’ you mention that many of them are born humans, and don’t even know about their heritage until they are awakened in some way.”

“That’s correct.”

“They would be American citizens then. Not monsters to be slaughtered.” Beckett’s voice was firm, and there was a challenging glint in her eyes.

“They go demon, we go Slayer on their butt!”

Castle saw Beckett tense up, and quickly started to explain what his Slayer meant - or should have meant. Slayers tended to be a tad too bloodthirsty for modern sensibilities. “What Vi meant, in her own, unique and language-mangling way, is that unless they become a threat to humans, we leave them be. But should they embrace their heritage to the point of attacking humans, then we embrace our heritage of killing what is a danger to us. Don’t tell PETA, please.”

“If they were born to humans, they have rights. Killing them would be murder.” Beckett was sitting very stiff now, very tense. And totally ignoring his jokes.

Castle didn’t think pointing out that self-defense was legal anyway would be a good idea, no matter how he might love to nitpick in an argument. He addressed the core issue instead. “It’s actually not murder. It’s legal.”

“What?” Beckett had that surprised, slightly shocked expression again.

“Yes. There are ancient treaties granting the Council the right and duty to deal with all demonic threats, no matter their origin.” Rupert had found them while searching the archives that hadn’t gone up with the Council Headquarters.

“We got a license to kill!” Vi gleefully simplified the issue while looking for a free spot to park the Shelby.

Castle coughed. “In a matter of speaking, yes.”

“That can’t be legal! That goes against everything the constitution stands for! The Supreme Court would never accept that!” Beckett’s voice was getting louder and louder. She seemed more shocked than when she had realised demons existed. The woman really was a good cop, and Castle hated to do this to her.

“Consider them ‘enemy combatants’. And think of Slayers as drones.” Even the names fit perfectly - ‘Predators’ and ‘Reapers’.

“Hey!”

Both Beckett and Castle ignored Vi’s affronted yell. Beckett, because she was thinking this over, Castle because he was watching her like a hawk. Even though constantly turning his head towards the back was getting very uncomfortable now.

“It’s not perfect, but it works. It has been working for centuries.” He wasn’t about to mention that they hadn’t had the numbers to cover even just the major cities of the world until a few years ago.

Before they could resume the conversation, the car stopped.

“We’ve arrived!” Vi announced.

Beckett didn’t react to the announcement.

“We can turn around and leave again, if you prefer to …” Castle started to say

“No, let’s do this.” Beckett pressed her lips together in what Castle knew was her version of Willow’s ‘resolve face’, and got out of the car.

“Alright. Let me fetch you your gun.” Castle got out and went to the trunk.

“I’ve got a gun,” Beckett declared, patting her jacket.

He couldn’t resist. “That’s not a gun.” He pulled out a 12 gauge shotgun with a pistol grip. “That’s a gun!”

Judging by the way Beckett rolled her eyes at his quote, she was back to normal. Tough, smart and annoyed by him. He’d have to work on that last part.

She still took the gun when he handed it to her. “It’s loaded with Dragon’s Breath rounds. Grab a couple shot and slug rounds too, so you can load them if something is fire resistant.” He followed his own example.

“You’re not taking your flamethrower?”

“We’re just visiting. I don’t expect real trouble.” It hadn’t been that long since Vi had wrecked the last patron there, so the demons should still be cowed enough. Or so Castle hoped.

Vi grabbed a HK53 with collapsible stock, which barely fit under her jacket, and started towards the bar, with Castle and Beckett trailing behind her.

“I always feel like a Sheriff approaching the Saloon full of bad guys.” Castle’s comment earned him another eyeroll.

Vi reached the entrance, and the bouncer ignored her. That was a good sign. Castle kept an eye on the disguised demon though, as he and Beckett passed it. Maybe they wouldn’t encounter any trouble. Or start it, in Vi’s case.

When they entered, Castle felt even better. The crowd didn’t contain any vampires - not any more. There was some dust in front of the back door, next to a tipped-over chair, and Vi had a smug expression on her face. Mostly regulars too, as far as he could tell. A Loose-Skinned Demon, two Brachen Demons, and what looked like a Pockla Demon under his hood.

“Don’t drink anything,” he told Beckett, who was still staring, but not quite as obviously as when she had entered, as they walked over to the bar, where Vi was putting the fear of the Slayer into the bartender.

Yes, Castle had a good feeling about this visit.

Five minutes later, a demon biker gang walked in.

*****

“That was great!” Vi exclaimed as she drove the Shelby away from the bar. Castle could see smoke still pouring out of the broken window while he rummaged through the glove compartment for some aspirin. He just knew he’d have a new set of bruises the next morning.

“Is it always like that?” Beckett asked from the backseat. She wasn’t hurt, as far as he could tell - and he hadn’t felt like checking in person when she had told him she was fine - but she had kept the shotgun.

“Nope. Those were newcomers to New York. Usually we don’t see that much action during a visit. Good shooting, by the way. You set two on fire with your first round! And the big one you shot in the balls... “

“He was asking for that with his comments.” Beckett smiled grimly.

“Yeah. Totally!” Vi nodded several times, still hyped up on adrenaline. Castle was just thinking the two women might be bonding when Vi continued: “You’re still no Slayer, but I guess you can handle a demon or two on your own.”

“Thanks…” Beckett said in a flat voice.

Judging by the amount of teeth shown in his car, Castle might have been safer staying in the demon bar.

*****

 


	9. The Cannibal Case

**New York, August 2009**

_“So, this is Clark’s,” the leader of the demon bikers, clad in ripped leathers, with studs to match the many horns and spikes sprouting from his skull, had declared in a loud, alien voice. He had looked around, then turned towards the others who had entered with him. “Doesn’t look like much, eh?”_

_“Bunch of pansy-ass grass eaters!” He had smiled, showing double rows of pointed teeth. Suddenly, his nostrils had flared, and he had sniffed the air. “Humans?”_

_Kate Beckett had watched him turn towards her, Castle and Vi. Had watched his smile widen, and heard him chuckle, then swagger over to them. And despite his alien, growling voice, and his utterly inhuman appearance, she had seen a punk. A dangerous, demonic punk, but still a punk. Dressed and acting like a punk._

_And she could handle punks._

_Next to her, Castle had tensed up, and Vi had smiled, ferally, while the regulars had started to back away._

_The big demon had marched up to them, licking his lips. “I may have to eat my words - not many places offer such an entertaining meal.”_

_The way he had leered when he said ‘entertaining’ had left no doubt about what he had planned to do with her and Vi. And maybe Castle too. The other demon bikers had laughed, and the biggest among them had even pointed at her. “Dibs on her.”_

_Castle’s smile had widened then, but his eyes had gone cold. Apparently dismissing the demon, he had turned to the Slayer. “What do you make of them, Vi?” He had been looking for a fight, Kate had realized then. And she had realised that she wasn’t a cop there. Wasn’t facing a human punk. Wasn’t bound by human laws._

_Vi had cocked her head sideways, and made a show out of studying the demon and his biker buddies who had come to flank him. “Bunch of bumpkins. Think they’re hot stuff, but too chicken to head to Cleveland. Too stupid to keep their head down and too ugly to get any woman. Worse than a vampire.”_

_The leader had stared at her, gaping, before he had drawn a deep breath, likely to shout or roar in rage. But when Vi’s fist had struck his belly he had folded around it, and all he had managed to utter was a whimper._

_That had caused the other demons to freeze for a second, in shock and surprise. Enough for Kate and Castle to whip out their shotguns and fire. She hadn’t fired a Dragon’s Breath round before and had aimed for the closest demon’s center of mass. The flames shooting out of the barrel had not just struck that demon, though, but the one next to him as well, and their clothes had ignited._

_Vi meanwhile had driven a blade right into the neck of the leader before kicking the bleeding, dying monster into the others charging her. Castle had shot one demon in the face with another flamethrowing shotgun round, but the next demon had slammed him into the bar. Before the monster had been able to hurt the author further, a dagger from Vi had hit it in the back of its head, and it had gone down._

_Right then the demon that had called dibs on her earlier had charged Kate, and she had had to focus on defending herself. The monster had been strong, but slow, and the detective had ducked under a wild swing, then rammed the muzzle of her shotgun into his groin, racking the slide at the same time. He had howled in rage. Then she had fired, and the monster had shrieked and collapsed, bleeding and thrashing. She had barely noticed how Castle had jumped behind the bar and then had shot a demon who had jumped on the bar, following him - the unbalanced biker had been thrown off by the shot. But she had noticed Vi fighting._

_Vi had simply slaughtered the rest of the gang. Kate had known the woman was very dangerous ever since she had seen her shoot, but she hadn’t known what the redhead had truly been capable of. The Slayer had moved in the middle of the demons, nimbly dodging their blows while striking hard enough to throw the monsters around like rag dolls. One was thrown in a window, ending up impaled on broken glass, howling until another thrown dagger silenced it. Kate had heard bones and skulls break despite the screams from wounded demons, had seen throats cut and eyes pierced, until the only ones left standing had been the ones she had set on fire. And their screams of agony had been cut off by Vi’s blade a few seconds later._

_The redhead had stood there, wiping green blood from her sword, and had grinned widely. “As I thought - big-mouthed pushovers.”_

_Kate had stared, still tense and worked up from the most brutal fight she had ever been in. Had she really just fought demons? And won?_

_“That one’s still alive,” Vi had said, pointing at the one she had shot in the groin. Kate had turned, and seen that it was whimpering, rocking back and forth on the ground._

_“I’m certain it wishes it wasn’t. Alive, that is,” Castle had commented from behind the bar, then had shot the demon in the head with a slug. “Happy to help.” The author, no, the Watcher, had rubbed his arm and shoulder, wincing._

_Kate had blinked. “We just…”_

_“... killed a bunch of cannibal rapists.” Vi grinned at her, then frowned at some spots of green blood on her jacket. “Damn… I’ll have to act the clueless wanna-be painter again at the dry-cleaning shop.”_

_“Technically, since demons are not human, they are not cannibals, but man-eaters,” Castle had said, stepping around the bar. “Let’s leave.”_

*****

Kate Beckett woke up with a gasp, eyes wide open, then closed them again. That was the third time that week she had dreamed of that night. Maybe she should have taken up Castle’s offer to celebrate her first ‘Demon Barfight’ ‘Slayer style’ - enough alcohol, and she might not have remembered anything.

She shook her head at her own foolishness. Trying to forget would be a coward’s choice. She was no coward, she could handle demons. In more than one sense.

She wasn’t sure she could handle Vi though.

*****

Richard Castle was smiling when he entered the bullpen of the 12th Precinct and dropped off a box of doughnuts at the break area, saving one for himself and one for Beckett. And another box for Vi. And coffee, of course.

“Good morning, Detective!” he said while sitting down in the chair he had come to consider his next to her desk, resisting the urge to swivel around.

“Morning, Castle,” the detective answered, briefly glancing up from her work and grabbing the offered doughnut and coffee. “Thanks.”

“So, what exciting case is waiting to be solved by my inspired help today?” He grinned while toasting her with his own cup.

“The exciting case of the piled up paperwork.” Beckett pointed at a stack of files.

He pouted. “Unfortunately, that task is beyond me.“ He already wrote more reports than he wanted to for London; he had no intention of doing more paperwork.

“Really? I would have expected an author to excel at paperwork, seeing as you make your living by writing.” She smiled sweetly at him.

“Ah, that’s a misconception many share. We successful authors have agents for that.” If only he had an agent for handling the paperwork Vi was prone to generate. Well, Alexis would help, he was certain, but he wasn’t certain if he wanted her help.

“In other words, you’re lazy and will watch me work while doing what you can to distract me.” Beckett made a point of looking at the file in front of her again.

“I’m distracting you?” He grinned. Progress!

“You’re annoying.”

“Close enough.” He shrugged. “So, what are you doing?”

“Going through cold cases, to see if any of them might have connections to demons.” Beckett said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Really?” He perked up. That might be interesting.

Then he heard Detective Esposito laugh behind him. “Of course not, Castle. We’re just checking the old cases for similarities to current ones.”

“Aren’t there computer programs for that?” Rick knew Willow had programmed some search-algorithms, ‘loosely inspired by google’s code’, to search databases for demon activities.

“Normal people have a budget to worry about. That includes the police.” Beckett rolled her eyes at him as if it was his fault the city lacked funds. He was paying his taxes.

Before he could respond, he saw Captain Montgomery walk towards them with a young woman at his side. Esposito at once returned to his own desk, where Vi was poking around in his files.

The captain was smiling. “Detective Beckett, Mister Castle - this is Miss Varshney. She’s a reporter for the ‘Post, and interested in the consulting Castle does for us.”

Miss Varshney smiled, nodding enthusiastically. “Call me Jane. I am so looking forward to see you two work together. The famous author, solving crimes with his muse!”

Right then, Castle realised two things. First, Beckett would be hating whatever article came of this. And second, this had to be the work of his agent and ex-wife Gina. As usual, she was making his life difficult while making money.

“Well, we’re not currently investigating a case, we’re just doing some paperwork,” Beckett explained.

“Boring paperwork!” Castle cut in. Maybe the reporter would leave.

“So you have time for an interview then?” Miss Varshney beamed at them.

Castle glanced at Beckett, and shivered at what he saw. If looks could kill, he’d need medical help.

Fate intervened though, in the form of Detective Ryan. “We’ve got a case. Dead man found hanging from a tree in the Central Park.”

“Yes!” Castle was out of his chair and ready to leave before he realized that this was probably not the kind of reaction to a murder he wanted to show to the press.

*****

**New York, August 2009**

The elevator was a bit crowded, with Rick Castle, Vi, Detectives Beckett, Ryan and Esposito, and Varshney all inside. Not crowded enough to be pressed against each other, though. Actually, they had enough space to stand comfortably, just not enough right now for Castle to feel safe from Beckett’s wrath. Though his slightly blundering reaction to the murder news seemed to have blunted her anger somewhat.

“Miss Varshney, let me introduce you to Violet O’Malley. She’s my bodyguard and driver.”

“Hi! I am also his inspiration for the new Vampire Hunter character in his next book!” Vi smiled widely and shook the woman’s hand.

The reporter looked slightly confused. “I thought Detective Beckett was the inspiration for the next ‘Vampire Hunter’ book.”

Vi made a dismissive gesture. “She’s the inspiration for the sidekick of the hunter. You know, research gal, hostage of the week, straight woman for any joke, that kind of character.”

Castle saw Beckett’s cheeks twitch as the detective clenched her teeth and stared at the elevator’s door, and the author hastily injected. “Actually, the book’s central character, Nikki Heat, will be a smart, sassy detective dealing with paranormal cases. Not a sidekick.”

Esposito and Ryan were carefully not saying anything, but their expressions seemed to be wavering between fear of Beckett’s temper and amusement at her reaction.

“Ah… so, there’s some competition over who gets to be your muse for this book, Mister Castle?” the reporter asked cheerfully.

“Ah, no”, Castle smiled and out on his best charm. “And call me Rick please.”

“Call me Jane then, please.” She beamed at him.

Of course, Vi had to ‘help’: “No, there’s really no competition at all. Right, Detective Beckett?”

“None.” Beckett shook her head. The two women exchanged sickly-sweet smiles. Castle couldn’t help but feeling that the elevator wasn’t big enough for the two women.

“I see,” Jane commented, then winked at Castle. Rick didn’t know what she thought she had seen. He wasn’t certain that he wanted to know, so he simply smiled politely while he waited for the blasted elevator to reach the parking garage.

“So… how long have you been working together?” Jane asked, holding her notepad.

“He has been following me around since March,” Beckett answered. “But it feels like it’s been much longer. Time flies, you know.”

Castle blinked at the implied statement that she wasn’t having fun with him around and was about to retort, but then thought better of it. Fortunately, the doors opened right then - they had finally arrived.

“A Mustang! This is great!” Jane exclaimed when she saw his car. Like a beach bunny from a car ad aimed at men in a midlife crisis. And didn’t that say a lot about himself?

“A Shelby, actually!” Vi gushed. “I used to drive Rick in his Z3 to the cases, but the Detective was a bit too heavy to sit in his lap when we needed to rush somewhere, so he bought a fast car that had more room for her.”

“I never thought the Detective was too heavy to sit in my lap”, Rick blurted out, “but it wasn’t safe for …” he trailed off when he saw the death glare from Beckett aimed at him.

Jane laughed at what she probably thought was a joke.

“Strap in, everyone!” Vi announced, sitting down behind the wheel.

“We’re not in a rush, Vi,” Castle remarked as he climbed into his car.

“Time’s money!”

“We can afford it.” He glared at her.

“You seem very close to each other,” Jane said, smiling. Castle wondered which section she was writing for - he guessed it was ‘People’.

“Oh, yes. She could be his daughter, couldn’t she?” Beckett grinned. Vi frowned at that.

Castle was very tempted to tell his Slayer to rush it. He had a feeling this wouldn’t be a relaxing drive either way.

*****

“It looks like he was lynched!” Castle exclaimed when he saw the crime scene.

The victim was still hanging from a tree when they arrived in the park. It was a middle-aged man, balding, wearing a cheap suit and cheaper shoes. The rope he was dangling from had been thrown over a branch and tied on a lower one. It also was sporting a classic hangman’s knot, not a simpler one. Lanie was already there, removing one of her probes from her bag.

“Looks like it, right?” Lanie commented.

Beckett, who had traded barbs with Vi that seemed to go over the reporter’s head for the entire duration of the drive, shot him a glare while she pulled on her disposable gloves. “Do we have an ID yet?”

Lanie shook her head. “He had no wallet on him, nor any papers.”

“That would be a very unusual holdup murder.”

“About one and a half yards from the ground to his feet. No sign of any ladder or chair he could have kicked off. If he had hung himself, then he would have to have climbed up after preparing the rope, and then jumped down from the branch. That would be very unusual for a suicide,” Beckett said while studying the corpse.

Castle noticed that Vi was sniffing the air. He glanced at her, and she nodded. She had smelled a demon. Great… a demon case with Beckett in the know and a reporter in tow.

Beckett hadn’t missed it either. “Castle, if this was one of those paranormal cases, which kind of demon would be behind it?”

He frowned at her, briefly, for putting him on the spot like this, with a reporter around, while Esposito and Ryan snickered. “Well… any demon with an affinity for hanging, or lynching people. Vampire cowboys, for example.” Esposito certainly wouldn’t be laughing like he was if he had ever met the Gorch Brothers before Buffy had killed them. “But,” he continued, after he had seen Vi shaking her head, “the corpse is not lacking any blood, so whoever did this wasn’t trying to frame vampires.”

“My preliminary estimate for the time of death is between 11 PM and 1 AM last night.” Lanie announced after withdrawing her probe. “And his neck didn’t break. He was strangled.”

“Looks like someone slowly pulled him up then. Nasty way to go,” Vi said. Jane, who had been looking slightly pale already, was now turning green.

“Jogger found the body in the morning,” Ryan announced. “She didn’t see anyone nearby, and she didn’t disturb the scene at all.”

“No witnesses, no tracks… and no ID.” Beckett summed it up.

“Quite a mystery,” Castle agreed. Next to them, Vi was crouching, studying the grass below and around the corpse.

“Oh, Jane!” Beckett suddenly addressed the reporter. “Did you see the stains here?” She pointed at the pants of the corpse.

Slightly unsteady on her feet and taking deep breaths, the woman approached. “No?”

Beckett proceeded to explain how the bowels emptied after death, and what exactly the stains were. Halfway into her exposition, the reporter lost her breakfast and the detective waved a uniform over to help the woman to the next bathroom.

“That was cruel,” Castle said, under his breath.

“But funny!” Vi added.

“While she is fixing her hair and replacing her far too tacky blouse, and Esposito and Ryan are talking with the jogger, you can fill me in what you smelled,” Beckett said, smiling innocently.

*****

“So… you smelled two different demons, but couldn’t narrow it down?” Beckett asked later, on the way back to the precinct.

“No. I don’t recognize the scent”, Vi admitted.

“Your nose is that good?”

“Yes,” Vi smiled. “I can track some demons by scent.”

“Wow. You’re like a bloodhound that can talk.”

Castle saw that Beckett’s smile widened when Vi realised that she had just been called a bitch.

Coughing, he tried to interrupt them before they started getting physical. “I’ll run a search. If this is the signature work of a demon, we should have reports on it.” He pulled out his smartphone and accessed the Council’s database. “Bingo!” he smiled. “There’s a report about a demon preying on criminals in the 19th century. He left them hanging.” He frowned at the two groaning women. That hadn’t been a bad pun!

“More importantly, how can you keep our nosy shadow from following you around and exposing your secret?”

“You could tell her that Javier and Kevin are your models for a yaoi couple in the next book,” Vi proposed.

“If they knew what you said, they wouldn't let you in the breakroom any more”, Beckett answered.

“Pf! I’d like to see them try!” Vi grinned.

“She’s not really a problem. We’ll simply hunt down leads after work,” Castle said, before Vi could come up with more helpful suggestions.

“Good. At which time should I head over?”

Castle stared at the detective for a second. “... around eight. We’ll eat on the way.”

*****

Jane had returned to the precinct with fresh clothes and a fresh hairstyle in the afternoon. Just in time for Lanie to call them down to the morgue. Everyone tried to stay a bit away from her, in case she lost her lunch this time. If she had eaten any in the first place - she didn’t look like she had.

“What do you have for us, Lanie?” Beckett asked.

“Something rather disturbing”, the Medical Examiner answered. “I checked his stomach’s content, to find out what he had eaten before his death.” She paused. “It was human flesh.”

“We’re dealing with a cannibal?” Castle exclaimed. That was something new indeed. When he saw Jane running to the toilets, one hand pressed against her mouth, he commented “Looks like not everyone has the stomach for cannibalism.”

Vi actually hit him for that one.

*****

**New York, August 2009**

Beckett arrived right on time at Castle’s that evening. Castle checked the mirror, then opened the door.

The detective entered: “You know, not inviting anyone into your flat will take some time to get used to it. some people might consider you rude.”

“I’m rich, so I’m not rude but eccentric.” Castle grinned at her, then proceeded to help her out of her coat.

“I thought we’d chase down leads.”

“We will. But Vi’s a bit delayed,” Castle explained. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“Water please. And what did she do? Break a nail playing with her swords?”

“Oh, snark! Well done! That’s so going into the book!” Castle grinned, and went to fetch her a glass of water, as well as a beer for himself.

“You’re actually writing a book about me? That’s not just some cover?” Beckett sounded as if she was actually surprised.

“Of course not! Why would you think that?” He might have not told her that demons and magic were real, and that he had been hunting vampires for twenty years, but why would she assume that he had lied to her about his plans for his next book?

“Because so much else about you is a lie,” Beckett answered in a flat tone.

Castle chuckled, though the accusation stung more than a bit. “I’ve been a paragon of openness. Even my fiction books are based on true stories.”

“You play the eccentric author, but you’re actually a veteran demon hunter. You play the fop and hide your skills and experience with the help of Vi… oh no. Please don’t tell me you’re imitating Bruce Wayne!” The detective stared at him.

“I’m not wearing a bat costume at night. Unless you want me to in the bedroom!” Rick gave her another ruggedly handsome smile. “But I can assure you: I am neither as rich, nor as neurotic as Bruce Wayne. And, sadly, not as built either.”

“He’s a comic book character, Castle,” the detective said, sighing.

“I know! That’s an unfair advantage right there!”

“Can you be serious for once?”

“You started with the Batman meme.” Castle grinned at her. “But… if you think I am not serious, then you’d be horrified by the Council’s leadership, Well, apart from my ex-wife and Rupert. They are as stuffy as it gets.”

“And yet Mary Wilkinson married you.”

“That she did. I think that was due to my ruggedly handsome charm.” And his persistence. And probably the lack of handsome British Watchers who didn’t think she should be a housewife after marriage.

“And you ran out of that during the marriage?” Beckett sounded far too sceptical there for his taste.

“I regained my mojo once I was free of the tweedy clutches of that woman!” No need to mention Gina the money and soul stealing bitch.

“You’re no Austin Powers either.”

“I might not be an international man of mystery, but I write mysteries, and I am far better looking than he is.”

“Can we focus on the case now?” The detective rolled her eyes at him. He’d mark that as admitting defeat.

“Of course.” He pulled a few files up on his laptop and turned it towards her. “We found a few leads. Or leads to leads, to be precise. There was a local historian, Dr. Burton, who had been writing a story about the “Noose Murders”, before his untimely demise. His estate was bought by a man named Andrej Miller, apparently a collector of old texts.” Beckett was staring at him for a second, then started to read the files.

“Did this local historian actually die of old age?” She looked up from the laptop and met his eyes.

“His heart gave out during intercourse with a woman sixty years his junior.” Castle sighed. Once, that would have been his favorite death. Beckett rolled her eyes again, but didn’t comment further until she had finished reading the file. “Does Mister Miller expect us?”

“He didn’t answer his phone all day.”

“So we’re going to see if he answers his door?” Beckett sounded incredulous. “That’s not really… wait! You’re planning to enter his home no matter if he’s there or not.”

“Ask me no question, hear no lie?”

“Castle!” She stood up from her seat and looked down at him. “You can’t just break into a man’s house!”

“Actually I could. But I won’t,” he said as sincerely as he could.

“I am glad to hear you have some sense left!” She shook her head at him, muttering something under her breath he missed.

Just then the door opened, and Vi walked in, dressed all in black, from skin-tight top to leather pants and ankle boots. “Hi, Detective. Ready to join us on our little fact-finding mission?”

Beckett took one look at her, and turned back to Castle. “You lied! You’re having her break in!”

“Technically, I didn’t lie. And for the record: I am not saying Vi will break in either.”

Before she could answer that, he continued. “Anyway… let’s be on our way. It would be rude to arrive too late at the man’s house.”

“Not as rude as breaking into his home,” Beckett said, but she followed him and Vi without trying to arrest either.

Castle smiled. They’d make a Scoobie out of her yet.

*****

“He’s not at home. And don’t try to sneak off, Vi. We’re not breaking into a house,” Beckett said, after ringing the doorbell for five minutes.

“We’re not.” Vi had stopped halfway to the corner of the wall.

“Don’t try to mince words!” the detective hissed. “I’m not going to let you… what are you doing?”

Vi was sniffing the air, frowning.

Castle knew that face. “Demons?”

“I smell decaying flesh,” his Slayer answered.

“Could be a zombie then.” Castle nodded. “Enough of a reason to check it out. Legally,” he added with a glance at Beckett.

“What?” She was gaping at him.

“If there could be a demon or zombie, we’ve got enough of a reason to enter the house and check it out. Like the police, just for demons.”

“The police follow the law!” Beckett put her hands on her hips and clenched her teeth together.

“So are we. Our law’s just a bit older. And our jurisdiction bigger.” He smiled apologetically at her.

Behind her, Vi added: “Just think of us as the Feds for demons!”

“The Feds don’t do such things.”

“Well, they should!” Vi said, then disappeared around the corner, leaving Castle alone with an angry, armed cop. Sometimes, his Slayer really didn’t know her priorities.

“Are you honestly claiming that just because Vi smelled some rotten meat, you can legally enter a stranger’s house?”

“Yes?” Castle didn’t see the problem there.

“This is crazy. I’m not smelling anything.”

“Well, neither am I, but Vi’s got the nose of a bloodhound.” Castle smiled and held up his hand. “Please, no bitch jokes.”

“Not everyone is fond of teenage humour, Castle.”

Before Castle could point out that Beckett had likened Vi to a bloodhound once already, the door opened. Vi stood there with a grim expression. “The owner’s at home. Kind of - he’s hanging from the ceiling.”

*****

“So, we got our second victim. Or first, since he died before the park guy.” Detective Esposito shook his head. “How did you notice the corpse?”

“We were looking for the writings of a man who had been about to write a book about a string of murders like this, the ‘Noose Murders’, back in the 19th century. Mister Miller was the current owner of them. When he didn’t answer the door, and Vi saw something hanging through the windows, we grew suspicious and entered.” Castle wasn’t about to go into more details. He was pretty certain this case wouldn’t see a courtroom.

“Wow, that’s creepy! A copycat killer, a hundred fifty years after the original!” The detective snorted.

“Well, maybe the ghost of the murderer returned. Or he woke up from suspended animation. Or it was an immortal demon, killing criminals who escaped the law.” Castle lowered his voice.

Esposito sighed and exchanged a glance with his partner, Detective Ryan. “Yeah, sure, Castle. Did he have what you were looking for?”

Castle ignored the look. He had expected that - he had made the comment to get that reaction, after all. “Yes. That man has had a very big library, focused on the occult. Almost as big as mine. Detective Beckett is currently reading the notes we came for, together with Vi.”

“Those two are working together?” Ryan sounded incredulous.

“Should we take cover?” Esposito added.

“They’re not that bad. We drove here together.” Castle frowned at the two men.

“Well, that was the truce of the road,” Esposito said, nodding slowly. “You can’t afford to distract Vi when she’s driving, or you might cause a crash.”

The way he said it… “She invited you for a quick drive, right? What was it, a doughnut run?” Castle asked, suppressing his smirk.

“Coffee,” Esposito confirmed his guess.

Castle chuckled. He’d have to ask Vi if she had made any pictures. You never knew when you needed some material for blackmail.

*****

“So… those were extensive notes. The author Dr. Burton had researched the murders very thoroughly. He even had a suspect identified, and found his grave,” Beckett summed the notes up she and the Slayer had studied.

“He researched the man’s grave?” Castle asked, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. That didn’t sound good.

“Yes,” Beckett answered, her puzzlement giving way to growing comprehension. “You expect he raised the dead?”

“Or set free a demon trapped in a corpse. We’ll have to check the grave.” He didn’t like that - it took a lot of effort to make Vi dig, even though she was far stronger than he was.

“Great. Breaking and entering, and now grave robbing.”

“All in a day’s work!” Castle smiled brightly at the woman. “Though we’re not robbing the grave. We’re just checking if the owner is still there, or went walkabout.” Although anything that looked dangerous or useful might go missing, of course.

“And if we go right now, we might catch a fledgling vampire at the cemetery!” Vi sounded eager. No surprise there. All Slayers usually were spoiling for a fight. Some just hid it better.

Castle nodded. “She’s right. With a bit of luck, you can stake your first vampire tonight!”

“Hey! I thought of that first, so any vampires we find are mine! She can get her own vampire to stake!”

“Don’t be greedy, Vi! We don’t even know if there will be a vampire or not.”

The two had reached his car when Castle noticed Beckett hadn’t been following them, but was still standing where they had been talking, staring at them. “Aren’t you coming?”

Beckett glared at him, as if he had said something wrong.

*****

**New York, August 2009**

“Do you break into cemeteries often?”

“Hm?” Richard Castle looked up from the files on his phone and turned his head towards Detective Beckett, who was sitting on the back bench. “Not that often.” He waited until she had nodded to continue. “We’ve got keys to all the major cemeteries, to make patrolling for new vampires easier.”

He thought she muttered “why did I ask?” under her breath, but he wasn’t certain - Vi was driving, and the big engine’s roar was not completely muted by the car’s insulation.

“Anyway. We’ll be checking for vampires on the way to the grave….” Castle glanced down “... of Elias Brighton.”

“You mean I will be checking for them. Unless you want to play bait,” Vi cut in while taking a turn so sharply, Castle thought the right side wheels lost contact with the road for a second.

“It’s a team effort.” He smirked. Turning more serious, he addressed Beckett again. “Since we don’t know what we might encounter, I’ll be taking the Ack Pack.” Seeing her puzzled look, he added: “British flamethrower model from the Second World War. My favorite.”

“The Doughnut of Death!”

“Thank you, Vi. Anyway, a crossbow would be traditional, but I’d suggest a shotgun with Dragon’s Breath rounds for you. We’re not in Britain, and it’ll finish a fledgling vampire easily. It also won’t kill a human hit by it. Burn them, yes, but not kill.” Hopefully, that would make the detective less prone to hesitate - some people had trouble shooting human-looking bloodsuckers. Some Star Trek fans allegedly even had trouble shooting the vampires with their demon faces on, but he thought that was an urban legend. Or a prank from Xander.

Beckett nodded, looking a bit queasy.

Twenty minutes later, they were walking past grave after grave while Rick tried to make sense of the layout of the cemetery and Vi was trying to sense any undead in the area. So far, neither had had any success, but hopefully, Beckett wouldn’t notice.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Damn. “We’re taking the scenic tour, so Vi can sense any undead trying to dig themselves out of their graves. It would be bad if we were jumped by a freshly-risen and very hungry vampire while digging a grave up.”

“Ah.”

Hiding a grin at his save, Castle continued trying to find Brighton’s grave. It took him ten minutes, but he managed it. Vi hadn’t sensed any vampire, though.

Beckett knelt down and felt the grass, fingers tracing the soil. Castle was about to ask what she was doing, when she suddenly held up a grass sod. “Someone’s been covering up something.”

“Oh, smooth!” Castle smiled while Vi frowned. The Slayer frowned even more when he nodded at the uncovered grave. “OK, your turn.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the Slayer, you’re the one with superhuman strength, endurance…”

“Hotness!”

“... and the ability to procrastinate more than a college fraternity.”

Turning to Beckett, he added: “Just like when we had to dig up the Hellmouth.” Then he had to dodge the first shovelful of earth thrown his way.

Fifteen minutes later they stared at an open casket with a shrunken corpse in it, next to the cut up remains of a noose.

“Freshly cut, but a very old rope,” Beckett declared, after climbing down and checking it.

“Sealing runes on the inside of the lid,” Rick pointed at the sigils. “Inlaid with silver - this was a demon’s prison.”

“There’s silver thread in the hemp rope too.” The detective held up a piece of the ancient hemp rope.

Rick took several pictures with his phone. “I’ll mail the details to London, but I think we can assume that to be defeated, the demon has to be hung with a rope with silver thread, then buried in such a casket.”

“There’s still a corpse here,” Beckett pointed out.

“That’s probably the man it possessed back then.”

“Oh.”

Judging by her expression, she too had realized that they’d have to hang a possessed man. “What about an exorcism?”

“Those seldom work well, but maybe London has a few ideas.” Castle wasn’t really expecting anything, and didn’t try to hide that.

“Can’t we leave it open?” Vi complained a minute later, shoveling earth on the casket. “I’ll just have to dig it up again once we have the demon.”

“Of course not! That would be unsafe. Even Slayers can fall into graves carelessly left open.” Castle shook his head.

“I’m not a Californian, I’d be fine.”

“Not once I tell Buffy you said that.”

Vi coughed and shoveled harder.

“Buffy?” Beckett asked.

“The oldest Slayer.”

“I’ll tell Buffy you described her like that!”

“The most experienced and most skilled and most powerful Slayer,” Rick hastily corrected himself.

“I’ll tell Faith you said that!”

“Ah.” Beckett looked like she had just realized something, but she didn’t say anything else until the grave had been filled again.

“Who’s the ‘Vampire Hunter’ styled after Buffy?” the detective finally asked after they were back in the car.

“Branda.”

“Branda the Blonde, who was in love with the Loremaster double her age?” Beckett was gaping at him. “That’s what you made out of the most experienced Slayer?”

Castle and Vi started laughing, but no matter how much she asked, neither would explain why.

*****

“Miller had eaten human flesh as well? Sounds like a new trend. We’ll have to watch out for hipsters taking a bite out of people.” Castle whistled while putting Beckett’s morning coffee on her desk and reading the file on her screen. He didn’t see the reporter around - if she were present, she probably would be on the toilet already. Hopefully, she wouldn't return until this case was dealt with. It would be better for her stomach, at least.

“Yes. Lanie finished the autopsy this morning.” Beckett grabbed her cup. “Thanks, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. One is a freak, two though… that sounds like a cabal of cannibals. Who are hunted by a Hanging Demon. Which in turn is hunted by the Police. Do you think that’d be too contrived for Nikki Heat’s introduction?”

“A cabal of cannibals?” Beckett sounded dubious. She also ignored his question.

“Yes. Are you familiar with the wendigo myth? The Native American tribes in this area believed that if you ate human flesh, you’d become a wendigo, a monster feeding on humans, never sated, always hungry. Kind of like every model, ever.”

“You think those two dead people were trying to become such monsters?” Now she sounded more worried than dubious.

“In some versions of the myth, the wendigo corrupt others. That’s how they breed,” Castle said.

“And the Hanging Demon hunts those people down?”

“It looks like it. But that leaves the question of who released it. Miller had the information, but as a cannibal himself, why would he have done that?” Castle rubbed his chin, thinking. He was missing something.

“He might have been tricked into eating human flesh,” Beckett offered.

“That would fit some stories about the wendigo. Miller bought the files from Burton’s estate months ago. Probably just for his collection. He met someone with the same interests in the occult. They talk, dine together… and he’s hooked. Then, somehow, he realizes what was done to him, he looks for a way to counter it. Finds it and releases the demon, but ends up murdered by it.” Castle nodded. It did sound right. It made a good story too.

Beckett smiled, looking both pleased and a bit feral. “So, now we need to find out who was tricking people into eating humans. IT should have cracked his computer soon and should give us access to his schedule.”

“The wonders of technology. Who knew electronics would make hunting demons easier?” Castle sighed. “It makes converting some stories into Fantasy novels harder. Nikki Heat will change that, of course.”

“Demons don’t use computers?” Apparently, Beckett didn’t want to talk about her future literary alter ego.

“Some do. There even was one demon trying to take over the internet. Or create a robot body. Or both.”

“What?”

Castle took a look at her expression, and held up his hands. “Hey… I don’t know the details, just some broad story… more like a few hints… really.” Willow had been rather adamant about not wanting to talk about that incident. And Castle had been rather fond of his computer security. “But it was handled, trust me.”

That didn’t seem to reassure Beckett much. She really had to work on that lack of trust issue.

*****

Castle looked at the condo complex, mentally comparing it to his own residence. The building was newer, but its location wasn’t as nice as his own. And the apartments looked like they were a bit smaller.

“Trying to guess if you need to upgrade your own home?” Beckett asked while climbing out of the car.

“Don’t give Vi ideas!” Castle admonished the detective when he saw the Slayer perking up. He coughed, then tried to change the subject. “So… this is where the Central Park victim lived?”

“Yes. Ryan managed to identify him through a dry cleaning stub found in his pants. Alessandro Fernandez. Worked for a Wall Street day trading firm, and got out before the bubble popped. Apparently a well-known collector of Native American art.” Beckett summed the information on the victim up.

“Ah… Native American art. Such a dangerous hobby,” Castle said, shaking his head. “He should have stuck to sky diving or alligator wrestling.”

Beckett laughed, then stopped when neither Rick nor Vi joined her. Muttering something Castle didn’t catch, she entered the building.

Uniformed cops - Castle told himself to simply call them ‘uniforms’ for the tenth or so time - had already opened the door to the dead man’s apartment.

“Quite a bit bigger than ours, Rick!” Vi exclaimed, looking around. It was more like a penthouse, taking over the entire floor.

“Ours?” He glanced at her. “You’ve got an apartment of your own.”

“Which you bought,” Vi answered, looking around. “Hm. Think you could buy this penthouse, since the owner’s dead?”

“I think we’re fine where we are,” Castle said, glaring at his Slayer. She wasn’t impressed, of course.

“If you’re done showing off your money, maybe we could start looking for a killer?” Beckett’s tone brooked no argument.

“At once!” Castle stated and started for the closest suspicious - or interesting - looking piece of art or furniture. Vi would, or should, sense the demonically-tainted pieces anyway, so he could indulge his curiosity.

He was studying a shaman mask - or a good fake of one - when Beckett called out: “Castle!”

“Yes?” He walked over to where she was talking with a cop.

“They can’t reach the housekeeper, a Mister Francis Lee,” Beckett informed him.

“Oh? Judging by the dust I saw, he might have been missing for a while. Did you check the fridge?” The human flesh the two dead had eaten had to have come from someone...

“They didn’t find any human parts in the kitchen or pantry,” Beckett informed him.

“If he wasn’t the meal, maybe he was the cook?”

Beckett tensed up - she knew what he was hinting at - and addressed the cop. “We’ll check out Lee’s apartment.” Castle caught her glancing at Vi, who hadn’t given any indication yet that she had felt anything demony. Demonic. He really had to do something about the Californisation of his language, before his editor noticed.

He nodded. “Yes, let’s go before Vi gets bored.”

*****

“That’s quite a surprising home for a housekeeper in Manhattan,” Castle commented when they reached the address on file for Francis Lee. It was a shabby apartment house in the Bronx.

“He recently moved in,” Beckett said. “Three months ago. Until then he was living in his room in Fernandez’s apartment.”

“That’s quite a surprising move. Unless his employer was insufferable, there’s no reason to move to… here. No good reason, at least. Are you sure you didn’t sense anything in the apartment, Vi?” Castle looked at his Slayer as they got out of the Shelby.

“Only some lingering stench, it was strongest in the kitchen.” Vi looked around, and Castle saw she was tensing up.

“Trouble?” He casually dropped a hand to his belt, near his holster.

“Just a feeling. Ugly.” Vi stared at the house.

“Let’s get the shotguns, just in case. Try silver ammo first, then cold iron, and if that doesn’t work, we set it on fire and let Vi beat it up.” The sun was setting, and the shadows growing longer and longer. Rick had a bad feeling about this as well.

“You know, before I met you, I didn’t enter every second building loaded for bear,” the detective said while she grabbed a shotgun. Castle made a mental note to get her one of her own. Maybe with a customized grip and stock. It would be a good christmas or birthday gift.

“That should be ‘loaded for demon’, but I understand what you mean. You must have been terribly bored.” Castle started for the entrance while Beckett gaped at him and Vi giggled.

Lee’s apartment was on the second floor. The elevator was out of order - probably had been so since Reagan’s election, given the amount of debris inside the cabin. A few more years, and archeologists would lay claim to the site.

Beckett knocked on the door. No one answered. “Mister Lee? Open up, NYPD!”

Vi snorted.

“Something funny, Vi?” Beckett asked.

“Just heard two deadbolts get slammed shut above us. I guess the other residents don’t like the...” Vi suddenly snarled, her nostrils flaring. “It’s in there!”

The Slayer kicked the door open, ripping the lock out of the wall in the process, and the stench of rotten meat and decay hit Castle’s nose. “Should have thought to bring a mask,” he muttered, following Vi into the apartment.

Or what was left of the apartment. Broken and smashed furniture littered the floor, deep gashes had been scratched or cut - or slashed - into the walls, and patches of dried blood were visible under hooks dangling from the ceiling. “Dear Lord, we’re standing in a monster’s butcher shop!” Castle exclaimed.

“You’re standing in my apartment.”

Someone wearing a blood-stained apron and what looked like a shaman mask stepped out of the kitchen. He looked unarmed and human, and Beckett reacted predictably. “Mister Lee? Detective Beckett, NYPD. We have a few questions about your employer.” She kept her gun ready though.

Whatever Lee had been about to say remained unsaid since Vi charged him right then, kicking him in the face. The force of her blow spun the man around and ripped the mask from his face. He didn’t fall down though.

“Vi!” Beckett shouted. “What are you…”

Castle was already shooting. Anything that didn’t go down after such a kick from Vi wasn’t human. His round hit the man in the chest, staggering him. Instead of dying, or at least screaming and falling down, Lee just smiled, showing yellowed teeth. And his smile kept growing wider and wider, until it literally split his face and revealed the hideous head of a monster covered in shaggy fur.

Vi kicked it again, throwing it against the next wall, and Castle heard bones breaking. They kept breaking, and he realized that the whole body of the thing was changing, growing, rearranging itself.

He shot it again, as did Beckett, but the thing kept changing, ripping out of its human skin and clothes until a shaggy, stooped monster was facing them, drool dripping from razor-sharp yellow teeth and half a foot long claws sliding out of its fingers.

Rick was reloading his shotgun with the cold iron slugs while Vi attacked it with her sword. The wendigo was tough and strong - one of its blows went through the wall as if it was cardboard - but it wasn’t quick enough to hit the nimble redhead, and the low ceiling hampered its movements as well.

On the other hand, Vi didn’t seem to be able to hurt it much either. The cuts she left on the body were not bleeding much and seemed to be healing already, and it protected its neck and head from Vi’s strikes.

“Clear!” Castle shouted, and Vi somersaulted back, her head narrowingly dodging the monster’s claws and her feet almost striking the ceiling. Before the Slayer touched the ground again, two shotguns roared and the monster was hit with cold iron and fire. The slug didn’t seem to do much, but the Dragon’s Breath set its stinking fur on fire, and the wendigo howled in rage and pain.

Vi used the opening provided by the creature’s attempts to beat the flames on its body out. The Slayer charged it again with her sword. At the last second, the monster reacted, and lashed out. The redhead was ready though, and ducked under the burning claws, then jumped up, her blade slicing deep into its throat.

Choking and gripping its bleeding neck, the monster staggered back against the battered wall. The Slayer landed on its flank, and lashed out again, cutting the tendons in its left leg. Making a horrible gurgling noise, the wendigo finally fell on the floor, setting trash on fire and splattering blood on the wood.

Vi grinned ferally and went in for the kill, dodging the the flailing arms and striking at its neck as if she was a lumberjack working on a log until the monster’s head rolled over the floor.

Breathing hard, Castle stared at it. “Damn.”

The two women looked puzzled at his reaction, and so he explained. “It would have been real handy if the wendigo had either changed back to a human form, or turned to ashes.”

Beckett groaned. “You’re right. I can’t report this. And we were heard by the other tenants.”

“If in doubt, set fire to the place?” Castle said, then winced at the glare he got. Beckett needed to work on her unhealthy aversion against arson too.

*****

“I can’t believe I falsified a report,” Beckett said the next evening, sharing a drink in Castle’s apartment with him and Vi.

“You didn’t. You just omitted a few details. The report clearly stated that the apartment was set afire, that shots were fired on a shaggy creature, and that we had to retreat from the apartment due to the flames. All that happened.” Castle refilled his glass.

“Yes. But the exact order of those events was different.”

“Details, details. Perlmutter will identify one of the wendigo’s victims in the flat as Lee, and explain the shaggy thing as a dog.” Castle grinned.

“No one who looks at the data will believe that.” Beckett held out her glass, and he refilled it as well.

“No one will look at it. And if anyone digs around, it’ll get buried by our contacts higher up the totem pole.” He almost reached over to pat her reassuringly on the knee, but he needed his hand for work. And other things. Beckett still didn’t seem to believe him, but she’d come around in time. “Anyway, we still have a Noose Demon on the loose. Did you find any suspects that could have served as his vessel?”

“Miller withdrew five thousand dollar from his bank account the day before he died. He probably hired someone to help him dig up Brighton’s corpse with that, but we don’t know who.” Beckett sighed and held a hand up. “Let me guess: It’s likely that Miller’s hired help ended up possessed by the demon he helped dig up.”

“Probably. Those possessions usually go for what is closest.”

“So we have a murderous demon vigilante in New York, and we don’t know how he looks or what name he might be using, just that he is likely to be using a noose to kill criminals.” Beckett finished her drink in one go and held her glass out to him to refill it again.

“Exactly! That’s quite a bit more than we usually know about the demons we hunt,” Castle told her cheerfully.

Vi, refilling her own glass, nodded emphatically.

“So, here’s to another successful case closed!” Castle raised his glass in a toast.

Beckett stared at him, then at Vi, then at her glass. Muttering something about ‘contagious craziness’, she chugged her drink, then held it out for another refill. All things considered, she was taking this really well.

*****

 


	10. The Russian Connection

**New York, September 2009**

“Really? The stomach flu, for two weeks?”

Richard Castle, bestselling fantasy author, raised his eyebrows at Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley.

“That’s what she just told the captain.” Vi, who had shamelessly abused her Slayer hearing to eavesdrop, sounded amused, not quite looking at Captain Montgomery’s office. Jane Varshney, Reporter not so extraordinaire, had returned to the 12th Precinct.

“Wow… makes you wonder if she’s as truthful when she’s writing,” Rick said, shaking his head.

“She’s a glorified and overpaid gossip columnist, Castle. You don’t honestly expect her to win a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon, do you?” Detective Kate Beckett rolled her eyes at the two of them. “And is there a reason you have to be sitting on my desk?”

Vi, who was letting her legs dangle, nodded. “Rick took the chair.”

“It’s my chair. I saw it first.” Rick wasn’t about to let himself get evicted. Though he might get away with purchasing a chair of his own, if that was what it took.

“It’s my desk. And you’re occupying quite a bit of it with your rear.” Beckett glared at Vi.

“Are you calling me fat?” Vi narrowed her eyes.

“No, I am trying to get you to stop occupying my desk and keeping me from my work.”

“Rick doesn’t have any trouble working when I am with him,” Vi declared. The Slayer leaned backwards, arching her back and pushing her chest out while her leather jacket slid down her shoulders. “Am I distracting you?” she whispered while licking her lips.

Rick made a mental note to talk to Faith about not being a bad influence on impressionable younger Slayers. Then he scratched the note - that would only encourage her. And Vi. He barely noted how Esposito was so distracted by the sight that he kept pouring coffee into his mug until it overflowed and scalded his hand.

“No, you’re simply annoying me. And you’re giving Castle ideas about his hypothetical book involving a certain detective with a stripper name and some redheaded hunter,” Beckett deadpanned.

Castle blinked. He had planned to have a ruggedly handsome journalist with a slight resemblance to himself romance Nikki Heat, but this… everyone knew love triangles attracted readers. Especially if it involved two hot women. His editor would love it!

“See? His mind just got lost in the gutter. Earth to Castle, the real world just called. The world where you’re currently fantasizing about an armed detective and a ‘trained bodyguard’.” Beckett waved her hand in front of him.

On the other hand, Castle loved to be alive. And whole. And he didn’t want to insinuate that kind of interest in Vi. He coughed. “You’re wrong. Besides, Nikki Heat strikes me as the more straitlaced kind of woman.”

“Oh, you might be mistaken about her past. But Nikki Heat wouldn’t go and rob the cradle. She would like a more mature partner.” Beckett smiled sweetly at Vi.

Castle barely kept himself from reflexively blurting out that he was mature.

Vi had less self-control, and growled: “I’m no teenager any more.”

“Oh? Could have fooled me,” Beckett said so innocently, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

The two women locked eyes with each other. They were so close now, Vi would have just to lean to the side a bit, or Beckett lean a bit forward…

“That’s so going into the book!” Castle said. His editor wouldn’t be happy, but it wouldn’t be the first time he had made changes at this stage.

He was saved from their ire by the Captain announcing that they had a case. Jane, standing next to Montgomery, was looking like she was about to have a relapse.

*****

“I have to point out that there’s nothing hypothetical about my book. My editor has seen the first draft already,” Castle said on the way to the crime scene.

“Hopefully he’ll change the name of the main character.”

“She,” Castle corrected the detective. “And she liked ‘Nikki Heat’. All the possible titles from the name alone....”

“What about Vivian, the real main character?” Vi wanted to know.

“She liked that character too, but thought it was a bit too close to another character I had already used.”

“Well, duh!” Vi smiled.

“Oh?” Jane asked, leaning forward.

“Vi also served as the inspiration for ‘Victoria’ in ‘Facing the Old One’,” Rick explained.

“Oh!” Jane seemed to read a lot into that, judging from the amount of notes she was making. Castle reminded himself that he would get to read the article before it was published. Would have to read it. Damn, he’d have to act as an editor too, if the woman’s questions were any indication of her writing skills.

They reached the crime scene - the Upper New York Bay. “We got a floater?” Castle asked, perking up.

“A man checking on his boat found the corpse. Tied to an anchor, floating right beneath the waves next to his boat’s hull.”

“An anchor…” Rick didn’t recall any demon using anchors. Not the kind found on ships, at least.

“We’re not going to dive, are we?” Vi asked.

“Don’t worry about ruining your hairstyle, the police has that in hand,” Beckett said from the back bench. One of those days, she’d accept his offer to sit in front. And she and Vi would be the best friends. And the World would be at peace.

Vi parked between a patrol car and the van from the morgue, and everyone got out. Jane, who had grown steadily more quiet the closer they got to their destination, was taking deep breaths already. Rick spotted Ryan standing nearby, and quickly walked over to the detective. “Put me down for ‘Five minutes after she sees the corpse’, and with twenty.”

“Got you.”

When he caught up with the rest of the group, Vi was smirking at him, and Beckett was glaring. He mouthed ‘You told her?’ to his Slayer, but she shook her head. He hadn’t thought he was that obvious. Or Beckett that perceptive. Then again, she had found out about his secret. Sort of.

“What do you have for us?” Beckett asked Lanie as soon as she saw her.

“Us.” Castle glanced at Beckett, smiling despite the glare he got in return.

The medical examiner pulled the blanket back from the corpse. “White male, about 30 years old, found tied to a small anchor with a chain.”

Castle whistled at the corpse’s chest. “That’s a lot of bullet holes.”

Lanie nodded. “Yes. But he might not have died from those wounds.”

“Water in the lungs?” Beckett crouched down to study the bullet holes. “The bullets must have perforated both lungs though. Small caliber. Less than 9 mm even.”

“Yes. I’ll have to conduct an autopsy to find the exact cause of death.”

“Do we have an ID yet?”

“He had his wallet on him.” Lanie held up a clear plastic bag with a slightly damaged ID in it.

“It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong then,” Castle said.

“Alexei Ivanovich Berezin. Russian national,” Beckett said, frowning.

“You can read Cyrillic?” Castle asked, surprised.

“I can speak Russian. I spent a semester in Kiev as a student,” the detective answered without taking her eyes off the document.

“Nikki Heat has even more hidden depths than I thought!” He’d have to find a way to get that into his next book.

“Time!” Vi suddenly said. Castle turned to her, and she pointed to the side, where Jane was bent over a plastic bag.

“Two minutes and 20 seconds,” Ryan said, handing over several bills to Beckett.

Castle stared at her. And she had been frowning at him for betting? He huffed.

“I told you I might not be as straitlaced as you assume,” Beckett said with smirk as she pocketed her winnings.

“Cops gambling… my faith in the police’s integrity just was shattered!” Castle sighed theatrically.

“Don’t be mad you lost, Castle. Just get used to it.”

“Never!”

*****

“Shot, drowned, and poisoned too? Who was this guy, the second coming of Rasputin?” Castle exclaimed after reading Lanie’s report back at the Precinct.

“That’s a good question, Castle. There are no records of this man entering the country legally. But judging by the parking tickets and receipts we found in his wallet, he has been in New York for months.”

“Oh… illegal immigration, and… polluting the environment? Does bleeding into the water after getting poisoned count?” Rick wondered.

“He’s dead, Castle. He won’t get prosecuted for anything.”

“Given how much it took to kill him, I’d not rule out resurrection.”

Beckett laughed, then stopped. “So that’s why Vi is watching Lanie working.”

Castle nodded.

“Do you think it could be a vampire?” Beckett asked in a lower voice, after checking for eavesdroppers.

“I don’t think so. This would be the first case of a rising after a burial at sea. Sort of.” Rupert would be ecstatic about such a novel case. “I’d suspect an exotic demon at work. Unless it was just adrenaline and luck.”

“Can’t Vi smell demons?”

“She can. But it’s not 100% foolproof.” Emphasis on ‘fool’, Castle thought.

“Did she ever have false positives?”

“Not so far,” Castle answered. Unless that unfortunate misunderstanding with the man who had just had messy sex with a succubus before encountering Vi counted. But he survived, and probably learned to pick his lovers more carefully, and shower more often. “But false negatives could happen without anyone realizing it.”

“We’ve got the vic’s address. We matched the key we found to an apartment building in Soho,” Esposito interrupted their discussion, handing Beckett a note with an address.

Castle peeked at it. “Oh? Gentrification involves illegal immigrants these days?” With a glance to the two detectives, he added: “I received the sales brochure for that building’s condos last year. It’s not exactly something you can pay while working in a sweatshop.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Castle, illegal immigrants are not all slaving away in sweatshops.”

“Well, he didn’t look like a stripper to me either.”

*****

**New York, September 2009**

“That’s really posh. More so than it looked like in the brochure,” Richard Castle commented when they stood in front of the dead man’s home.

“Careful, Castle. Your English contamination is showing.” Beckett grinned.

“Damn. Next, I’ll drink tea instead of coffee, and then I’ll get deported.” Castle sighed as the entered the building. The inside wasn’t posh. It was gaudy. Expensive, but ugly.

“They don’t deport people for drinking tea.” Beckett flashed her badge to the concierge. “NYPD. We need the key to the apartment 306.”

The man checked her badge carefully - longer than most people Castle had seen interact with the detective so far - before he disappeared into the office behind the desk.

“I thought we had the key.”

“That’s evidence. There’s no need to take it with us.” Beckett explained.

The man returned, and handed the key over. He had the faintest accent - East European. Or Russian. He was still looking at them when they entered the elevator.

“I would feel better if Vi was with us,” Rick said once they were inside the cabin. “That receptionist guy creeps me out. And that means something coming from a man who regularly deals with demons.”

“He’s probably a member of the Bratva.” Beckett looked around.

“The what?” Castle couldn’t spot what she was looking for. Hidden cameras?

“The Russian Mafia.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“There’s this thing called ‘evidence’ we need to arrest people, Castle. We can’t just burn them down on a suspicion.” Beckett frowned at him. She was probably jealous that a Watcher didn’t have to follow the same rules as a cop.

“Why would you think he’s with the mob anyway? His accent?” Castle wondered. Beckett wasn’t the type to do racial profiling.

“That, and the fact this building is owned by a front for the Bratva,” Beckett said, as if she was talking about the weather.

“What?” Castle gaped at her. “And you only mention this now?” He didn’t know much about the Russian Mafia, but he did know that they were brutal, lethal, and had no scruples at all. And with possible demonic influence… That would be a really ugly combination. A good story, though.

“If I had known you’d react like this, I’d have mentioned it earlier.” Beckett snorted. “And had a camera ready.” She shook her head, amusement audible in her tone. “Just don’t insult them, don’t provoke them, and don’t hint at knowing anything about them that might get them jailed, and they’ll not harm you at all.” Beckett smiled at him.

“You’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this since we went to Clark’s, haven’t you?” Rick pouted at her.

“Would I do such a thing?” she asked, and he saw the corners of her mouth twitch.

“In a heartbeat.” He knew she was rather competitive, or she wouldn’t clash with Vi that much.

The elevator doors opened, revealing a hallway with too much brass and marble to look stylish or classy. “And they thought I’d want to live in such a house?” Castle shook his head.

“Shocking, isn’t it? That someone could misjudge you so.”

“I’ll have to check with my publisher if my public image needs some corrections.” He wouldn’t want to be known as a rich man without class. He’d had enough of that attitude in England.

Rick didn’t know why Beckett snorted at that.

The victim’s apartment was not quite as ostentatious as the rest of the building. Not spartan, nor cheaply furnished, but definitely a cut below the standards, so to speak, of the Russian Mafia, as far as he could tell. “Do you think he was killed because he didn’t have the required amount of gold-plated things in his apartment? Sort of like the mob version of the neighbourhood association?”

“You know, these kind of comments do not fill me with confidence that your next book will be any good. You might want to stick to medieval fantasy,” Beckett said while opening drawers of a cabinet in the hallway.

“Oh, you’ll love the book, trust me!” And she would - who wouldn’t like to be immortalised in a bestselling novel? As the main character?

“I would trust you a bit more if I could shake the suspicion that you’ll have Nikki Heat go undercover as a stripper.”

“Oh!” That was an idea!

“Castle! That was a joke, not a suggestion. Don’t you dare…” she trailed off after opening the door to the victim’s living room. “Bozhe moi!”

Rick didn’t like the sound of that. And he liked the sight of a living room turned into a ritual chamber even less. “I don’t know what you just said, but it sounded appropriate.”

“Is that a real one, or a fake one?” She pointed at the circle edged into the wooden floor.

“I’m no expert, but it looks serviceable.” A pentagram, lined with candles. He crouched down and ran a finger over the small grooves. “Dried blood.” He took pictures of the scene, and sent them to London. Beckett didn’t comment.

He turned to Beckett. “Did you see any books? Old, leather bound, maybe?” This kind of ritual wasn’t done from memory.

“No, nothing like that.”

They didn’t find any tomes or grimoires by the time the uniforms arrived. Castle had a feeling that they too wouldn’t find anything. Maybe Vi would sense something, when she swung by later.

*****

“The dead guy stayed dead. And he was completely human,” Vi was reporting, once again occupying part of Beckett’s desk. “Perfectly ordinary.”

“And yet he had a ritual circle in his living room, a used one,” Castle shook his head. “And a working one, according to Dawn.”

“Dawn?” Beckett asked. “You mentioned her before. Your No. 1 fan?”

“A fellow Watcher,” Rick said.

“And his No. 1 fan. She had the biggest crush on him, a few years ago, but she was too young,” Vi added, smirking.

“And she grew out of it, years ago.” Castle glared at his Slayer. “Of the crush, that is.”

“She’d still jump your bones given half a chance.”

“And then Buffy would break my bones. Not that I have any intention of sleeping with Dawn,” Castle clarified hastily.

“Suuure.” Vi’s grin widened.

“Anyway,” Castle changed the topic before Beckett could get the wrong impression, “Dawn’s sure that this kind of ritual wasn’t done from memory. So, there have to be some notes around, or - as I suspect - a grimoire.” And if those notes or that book were the real deal, they were worth to kill for.

“Anyone with connections to the owners of the building could have entered the apartment with the keys from the concierge,” Beckett said.

“Was the victim a member of the mob too?”

“We don’t know yet. IT is still trying to reconstruct his finances.” Beckett didn’t sound too optimistic with regards to that part of the investigation. “But the stubs and receipts found in the dead’s wallet indicate that he often frequented a nightclub popular among Russian immigrants.”

“Ohh!” Vi perked up.

Castle glared at her. “No beating up the Russian Mafia, Vi! They’re not demons.”

“Self-defense is allowed!”

“No provoking them either just so you can claim they started it.” He knew about that trick. It was quite popular among Slayers, especially Faith.

“Are you two planning to visit that bar?” Beckett looked from Rick to Vi and back.

The Slayer nodded, grinning.

“How do you expect to find out anything without understanding Russian? Do you think they’ll all speak English for you to overhear?”

“Well… “ The detective made that part of the plan sound like it wouldn’t work.

Beckett rolled her eyes. “Or do you plan to shake down the Bratva for information like you shake down demons?”

That had been the backup plan, not that Castle would admit that. “I was hoping we’d find some demons there, and ‘talk’ to them.” That usually worked.

Beckett closed her eyes. “I’ve got a mind to let you try that, but if you got killed, the mayor would be unhappy with the captain, and he’d be unhappy with me.”

“Your concern for our health is overwhelming, Detective,” Castle said, slightly cross. As if she didn’t really care about him!

“Yes, it is. Astonishing too.” The detective sighed. “I just know I will regret this, but it is our best lead, and I doubt walking in there with a badge will do much good.”

“We’re going undercover then?” Castle asked. That sounded interesting!

“She and I. I to eavesdrop on the Russians, she to sniff out demons.”

“I’m rich and famous. I can visit any nightclub without looking suspicious.” Castle grinned. As if he’d let the two women go there alone!

“True,” Beckett conceded.

“So, Operation Undercover is a go!” Castle declared. “Vi can be my arm-candy. What will be your cover identity? I’ve got two arms!” And it would be great to see the detective in a sexy cocktail dress, again.

“I do not think it would be smart to go together,” Beckett stated, rolling her eyes. “That way, if one of us gets into trouble, the others are not compromised.”

“You sound as if you expect us to get into trouble.”

Beckett didn’t say anything, but her expression told Castle that this was exactly what she was expecting.

The woman had no faith in him. He’d prove her wrong!

*****

**New York, September 2009**

“You know, I almost wish we’d get to wear a wire. Using our phones seems so… normal,” Richard Castle said while checking if his smartphone, slightly enhanced by Willow, was fully charged.

“We’re not exactly about to enter a secret meeting of mob members, so no one will ask for our smartphones,” Beckett said, shaking her head at him.

“I still wonder where you’ll be stashing yours though. That dress doesn’t seem to let you carry a credit card, much less a phone.” He didn’t quite leer at her, though he wanted to - the cocktail dress she was wearing looked like she had been poured into it.

“Purses exist for a reason.” Sighing, she smoothed the dress out. “That’s what the kind of young, immigrant girls visiting that club are wearing. Trust me, I’d rather wear something a bit more…”

“... decent?” He grinned.

She glared at him. “I was about to say classy, thank you.”

“But you had that indecent dress already,” Vi got a dig in with barely-hidden glee.

“Remnants of my rebellious youth,” Beckett grinned, if a bit forcedly, at the Slayer, who was wearing a very similar-looking dress which Castle had paid for in the afternoon. “Though since it still fits me perfectly, I don’t see the need to spend money on another slutty dress.”

That made Vi frown. “We’ll have to introduce you to Faith! You’ll hit it off!”

Castle coughed. “No, we don’t!” He turned to Beckett. “Faith is the second-oldest - second-most experienced - Slayer and she dresses rather provocatively.”

“Which you’d call ‘slutty’!” Vi added.

Castle glared at his Slayer. “And she’s got a penchant for violence.”

“I thought every Slayer is prone to using violence.” Beckett raised her eyebrows.

“Well, they are…” Castle ignored Vi’s “No, we’re not!” and continued: “... but Faith is kind of… exceptional. The other Slayers fear her.”

“No, we don’t!” Vi put her hands on her hip.

“I’ll tell her that you said that,” Castle said, smirking when she faltered.

“We just… respect her. Very much,” Vi admitted, sulking.

“Well, noted. But this ‘Faith’ isn’t here, and we’ve got a nightclub to visit, so how about we focus on that for a bit? I am sure there will be ample opportunities to indulge in sharing scary Slayer stories later.”

She obviously didn’t get how scary Faith was, Castle thought. But she had a point.

“Why are you posing as an immigrant anyway? Wouldn’t it be better if the mobsters didn’t know you spoke Russian? They might let their guard down around us.”

“They would wonder why three Americans are visiting the club, and probably keep a closer eye on us,” Beckett explained. “Especially if one of them is a famous author.”

“So, we’re to be the distraction then.”

“Exactly. I’ll ask around after our dead man, see if anyone knows him. Just play the fool and his arm candy.” Beckett smiled. “If anyone asks, claim you heard about the club from a fan. Please try to not start a riot for an hour or two.”

“Hey! I’ve never started a riot!” He had done a lot, but that particular achievement had eluded him so far.

“And we’ve only set fire to, like… five demon bars!” Vi wasn’t helping.

“You’re not taking your flamethrower with you!” Beckett glared at them.

“Of course not!” He’d leave it in his car. Just in case.

*****

The nightclub - Hotel Moscow - didn’t look impressive from the outside. If not for the groups of underdressed smoking people outside, and the two hulking bouncers at the door, the entrance would have looked like it belonged to an office building.

Castle and Vi waited in the car while Beckett went in first. Rick had to admit to himself that the detective was almost unrecognisable with her blonde wig, makeup, and that slutty dress that drew the attention far away from her face. Though he didn’t think complimenting Beckett for the fact that she could pull off ‘looking like a call girl’ very well would go over well. He really hoped Vi would not make a comment about that.

“If I didn’t know she was a cop, I’d ask for her rates. Do you think she worked for Vice before she became a detective?”

And there went that hope. Maybe she wouldn't mention it to Beckett. And pigs would fly - without Andrew messing up a ritual. “You’d ask for her rates?”

“It’s just an expression to say she looks like a professional, you know.” Vi glared at him. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Perish the thought!” But there’d be an undercover mission in his next book. Definitely.

The detective passed the bouncers without trouble. Castle didn’t think they’d even took a look at her face. Understandable, really.

“How long do we wait?” Vi had that whiny undertone already. Slayers and patience didn’t go hand in hand at all, to the detriment of their Watchers.

“At least a quarter of an hour,” Castle said. It would feel like an hour, of course. Vi was already fidgeting. “You’re usually not quite that impatient.”

“I just don’t like letting her go first.”

“Ah.” And that explained it. Slayer competitiveness. He often wondered how Xander managed to handle a dozen of the girls. Without getting killed as collateral damage.

“They didn’t frisk her. I’ll be able to slip in my blades. You gonna pack your Glock?”

He didn’t comment on the fact that she would have an easier time concealing weapons with a slightly longer skirt. He blamed Buffy and Faith for the predominant ‘Slayer style’. “No. I think I’ll be safer as the famous clueless author.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.” Vi patted his arm.

“That would be more reassuring if you didn’t have to keep me safe from trouble you started at least half of the time.”

“Hey!”

He smirked at her outraged reaction. Two minutes down, thirteen more to go.

*****

Castle and Vi got a bit more attention from the bouncers, as Beckett had predicted. Mostly Castle though - Vi got the kind of attention any pretty girl wearing a too short skirt and too tight top would get. He smiled at the bouncers. “Richard Castle. You may have heard of me. I’ve certainly heard of this club!” They didn’t recognise him, but they did recognise a hundred bucks, and waved him through with a smile. Money was the universal language.

The place was packed full of people dancing, drinking and flirting. Judging by the smell, they didn’t really enforce the ban on smoking inside clubs, and he doubted they qualified for an exception. He saw Vi wrinkle her nose, and raised his eyebrows at her. She met his eyes, and nodded. So there was a demon nearby. That didn’t have to mean anything, of course. But he’d bet it did.

It was almost impossible to find a demon or two in such a crowd though, apart from personally checking everyone out. And that wouldn’t end up that well in this place either. Not even for a pretty girl like Vi.

So the two of them made their way to the bar while he tried to spot Beckett. He had no success though.

“Cop ten o’clock, cozying up to a slimeball,” Vi whispered, leaning with her back against the bar next to him.

Rick slowly turned his head, and spotted Beckett, laughing next to some ugly brute of a gangster who was staring down her dress. The man had a face that just begged to be introduced to Castle’s, or better, Vi’s fists.

Castle turned towards the bartender, smiling and ordering a Bloody Mary for himself, and a cola for Vi. A generous tip followed.

“They’re talking in Russian,” Vi said.

“Well, that was to be expected. But does he seem to be buying her act?” Castle slowly leaned a bit closer to Vi, with a wide smile pasted on his face.

“He seems to be buying her drinks, at least,” Vi answered.

Castle glanced over. “Well, so far so good.” He took the rest of the room in. “This looks like a nice club, actually. If not for the fact that it’s owned by the mob.”

“Mister Castle?”

Rick turned towards the man who had just approached him. ‘Thug’ was the first impression. But he looked friendly. And Castle had a role to play. “Yes, that’s me! Are you a fan of my books?”

“Ah, I must confess I barely find the time to read the newspapers, these days. Work, you understand. But I recognized you from my girlfriend’s magazine. I am Petar Kusmich, and this is Natasha.” The man pointed at girl next to him. She was pretty, young, and beaming at Rick.

“Pleased to meet you. This is Vi,” Castle presented the Slayer.

Kusmich bent to kiss Vi’s hand, displaying remarkable manners for a gangster. At least as far as Castle thought - his knowledge of the Russian Mafia might be a tad lacking, he realized. He knew far more about Russian monsters than mobsters. “Work?”

“I own the club.” The Russian smiled and made a sweeping gesture. “Where did you hear of it, if I may ask?”

“It’s a bit of an embarrassing story, so I trust your discretion,” Castle said, leaning forward. “I met a pretty fan of mine at a vernissage, and we got in a drinking contest that turned out not to be any contest. The girl drank me under the table. She mentioned this club, which is the only thing I recall of that evening.” He held up his glass. “I’ve been training since then, to offer her a better challenge in case we meet again, and where better than here?”

Kusmich laughed loudly. “A hard drinking man, I like that.”

“More like working hard at drinking, still.” Castle had the distinct feeling that he was about to be played, but no idea in what way.

“Do you play poker, by chance?” Ah, that way.

“I’ve been known to play a few hands with colleagues of mine. Fellow writers. But our schedules don’t line up too often.”

“Would you be interested in a little game?” Kusmich asked, eyes glinting.

Castle smiled back. “Definitely!” Playing poker with Russian mafiosi? Who could resist that? And since it wasn’t Kitten Poker, he wouldn’t be saddled with either a basket full of meowling animals, or a reproachful look from his family for letting kittens get eaten. Win win.

“Let me show you a more private room then, Mister Castle.”

“Call me Rick!”

They were passing closer to the table Beckett was getting leered at by that brute when Castle froze. The concierge of the victim’s condo was there, a few meters away, and pointing at the detective. That was very bad!

“That’s a demon,” Vi whispered.

And that was worse!

*****

**New York, September 2009**

Richard Castle was in a bind. The thug had stopped leering at Beckett and was now glaring at her instead. Two more gangsters were on the way, attracted by the commotion, and the demon-concierge - was that like a gatekeeper of hell? he briefly wondered - had gripped the detective’s arm.

He was unarmed - mostly, he still had a stake up his sleeve - with Vi only carrying a few knives, but they could take those men and Kusmich. But there were too many people around. Too many witnesses, and potential victims of stray shots - he doubted that the Russians would hesitate to shoot. So he put a hand on Vi’s arm when he saw the Slayer tense, met Beckett’s eyes for a fraction of a second, and steered his Slayer after Kusmich. The man had just briefly stopped and glanced at the scene with the detective before continuing towards the door in the back. The same door, so Castle thought, the gangsters would drag Beckett through as well.

Perfect. Or close to it. He wasn’t that picky.

Kusmich was walking a bit faster. The man probably wanted to get them into the poker room before the thugs dragged Beckett into the torture room. Natasha easily matched his stride, despite her six inch heels. Castle risked a subtle glance - Beckett was now cornered by three thugs, and one demon, and they were obviously waiting.

Kusmich reached the backdoor, nodding at the guard there. That man was very tall, and his muscles would make Schwarzenegger jealous. Castle looked at Vi, but she wasn’t showing any reaction, so it was probably steroids, and not demonic blood.

They passed the door - thick, sturdy, and sound-proof as well, since as soon as it closed, Castle couldn’t hear the music from the club any more. Which worked both ways. Kusmich started to talk again. “Welcome to our private rooms…” was as far as he got before Vi punched him in the gut, doubling him over. She withdrew her fist, holding a pistol, and handed it to Castle while dropping the gangster with a blow to the neck. Castle didn’t recognize the model, but as he racked the slide, a 9 mm cartridge fell out. It’d do.

Natasha was staring at them, her mouth open, while Vi hefted the man up and dropped him a few meters to the side, in front of another door. “Don’t mind us. Demon hunting in progress,” Castle said, smiling. The girl gasped and started to run away. Or tried to - she stumbled and fell, then kicked her heels off before scrambling away on bare feet.

“You’ve got to work on your smiles, Rick,” Vi said, taking up a position next to the door.

“I think it was the gun. It doesn’t look as nice as my usual one,” Rick said, and matched her on the other side, gun held at his side.

Just in time - the door was opened again, and the first thug walked in, followed by the two goons dragging Beckett between them. That meant the demon was bringing up the rear.

“Freeze!” Castle said, pointing the gun at the lead thug. The man froze, cursing under his breath.

That was as far as things went according to plan, though. Castle heard a croaking noise, and something slimy wrapped around his arm and hand, ripping the gun out of his grip. He turned his head and saw that it was an elongated tongue the demon had shot out of his suddenly far too wide mouth. Vi slammed the door into the demon, stunning it, and Castle went for the gun, only to be tackled by the lead thug.

The gangster hit him like a freight train, bowling him over and rolling over the ground. Rick managed to shield his head, but a few blows hit his stomach, almost making him lose his meal. He managed to hit the man back, but the thug didn’t seem to feel his blows. Not at all. One hand closed around his throat, and he had trouble breathing. With the man straddling him, he couldn’t get to his stake. In desperation, he groped around for the gun, it had to be around here somewhere… his fingers closed around something smooth… it wasn’t the gun, it was one of Natasha’s heels!

He hit the thug throttling him with it, several times, until the man let go of his throat with a pained yell, and pressed a hand to his bleeding ear. Coughing, Rick saw the man straddling him had pulled back a bit, out of reflex probably, and hit him in the groin with his makeshift weapon. The thug choked, then whimpered and rolled off Castle.

Panting, Castle was about to look for the pistol once more, but a shot made him freeze up.

“никому не двигаться!”

Beckett was standing there, gun in hand. She’d lost her shoes too, and her dress had seen better days as well. But the two guys who had been holding her were down, one moaning and gripping his groin while staring wide-eyed at the tongue-demon, the other was knocked out and bleeding, sprawled in a heap below a suspicious dent in the wall. Vi was wrapped in demon frog tongue, but seemed to have gotten the upper hand - the monster was looking rather battered, and the tongue seemed to have lost its tension. Her clothes were a lost cause though.

As far as fights went, this had gone well.

While Beckett kept the gun trained on the semi-conscious Russians, Castle frisked them, finding three more pistols, and Vi unwrapped herself from the demon tongue, muttering about slime, clothes and spas owed to her. Everything was back to normal then.

Castle coughed a few times until he was sure his voice was working properly still, then addressed the demon. “Now… we have a few questions. What do you know about Alexei Ivanovich Berezin?”

“ебать твою мать!

Castle didn’t know Russian, but that hadn’t sounded helpful, or polite. “Let me introduce my charming friends here. This is, as you probably know already, Detective Beckett. She’s armed and got a temper. And this is Vi, the resident Slayer of New York. You just ruined her favorite outfit. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

The other thugs were still staring at the demon, as if they had never seen him before. They probably hadn’t. The frog-tongue-demon itself started talking rapidly once Vi hefted him up with one hand. Unfortunately, he was talking in Russian. At least Beckett looked like she understood most of it.

*****

“So… the demon concierge was working with the victim on a ritual to make him tougher and stronger, but didn’t kill him. The victim was afraid of some unnamed other Russian gangsters. And the tome they used for the ritual is missing.” Castle summed the results up while the three of them were walking back to his car.

“He has an alibi for the time of death, Ryan checked that today already.” Beckett checked her recovered phone for new calls and messages.

“It was a suspect?” Castle asked, surprised. “Never mind - of course it was.”

“What do you think will happen to the demon?”

“It’ll probably run. Those thugs didn’t look like they were happy to discover one of them is a monster. Well, a worse monster than gangsters.”

“We should have killed it. It ruined my outfit!” Vi growled.

“We don’t slay demons for ruining dresses.”

“Well, we should! Buffy would agree with me!” The blonde Slayer probably would.

“It was a slutty outfit anyway. No big loss,” Beckett said.

“It’s the principle of the thing! If you let them get away with ruining one dress, they’ll do it again, and with more expensive and classier dresses too!” Vi pointed at her ruined top. “Plus, this should count as sexual harrassment too!”

Castle was very carefully not looking at what she pointed at. They didn’t tell you about that when you joined the Watchers.

*****

The next morning, Rick was carefully walking into the bullpen of the 12th Precinct. His bruises were hidden by his shirt, but he could feel each spot on his body that the Russian thug had hit, and even breathing hurt a bit. His only consolation was that the guy would be in much more pain - that stiletto heel had done good work.

Vi of course was all fine again, if still a bit mad about the lost outfit. No matter that it had been rather slutty, even by Slayer standards. Not that Castle would say that.

He walked up to Beckett. The detective didn’t show any signs of the fight they had been in either, but she looked tired at least, and shot him a grateful smile when he put her coffee down on her desk. “Rough night?” he asked.

“Long night,” Beckett answered, with a slight glare. Obviously, she didn’t appreciate his attempts to keep up appearances.

“Any further news on the case?” He took a sip from his own coffee. He really should buy the precinct a coffee maker of their own, for the breaks.

“No, but…” her desk phone rang, interrupting her. She took the call, listened, and Castle could see her face growing hard. “We’ll be right there.”

She looked at him. “A patrol just found four men, hanging from a tree in the Central Park. With an old leather-bound tome placed at their feet.”

“Looks like our noose-demon has not left town.”

And it was messing with their case.

*****

 


	11. Grave News

**New York, October 2009**

There were things a famous author and veteran demon hunter didn’t need to encounter in the morning. A gaggle of men in cheap suits taking up space in the bullpen when he brought his muse her morning coffee was one of them.

“So, they declared our noose-vigilante a serial killer, and now the Feds are trying to poach our case?” Richard Castle wasn’t happy about the situation. A demon on the loose was bad enough, but that demon attracting the FBI’s attention - and not even the attention of the agents who knew about the supernatural - was worse. But worst was that among the agents who had arrived at the precinct to take over was Special Agent Sorenson.

“Shh. They can hear you.” Detective Beckett made a shushing notion at him before the men in suits turned their attention to them. At least Beckett didn’t sound too happy to see Mister FBI.

“Agent Soso! Nice to meet you again!” Castle beamed at the man.

“It’s Sorenson, Mister Castle.” The agent didn’t smile in return.

“Oh, excuse me. I was thinking of the character in my next book.” Castle noted with well-hidden satisfaction that that made the agent twitch and Beckett grin, briefly.

“Book?” A tall, lanky agent who had been following Sorenson asked. Smiling, he introduced himself. “Agent Clapton.”

“I’m Richard Castle. You might have heard of me.” Rick smiled back.

“He’s an author who’s following the detective around in the hope of getting inspiration for his fantasy novels,” Sorenson cut in.

“Bestselling author, thank you,” Castle corrected the agent. “He’ll be a bumbling agent in my next book, messing up the work of the main character, the smart and sassy detective dealing with demonic cases.”

“And I’m Vi, his bodyguard and driver.” His Slayer beamed at the agents. She didn’t seem to mind that their expressions pretty much showed they thought she was Castle’s lover. Well, Sorenson’s expression probably showed his opinion of Castle’s work more than that of Rick’s private life.

“This is now a federal investigation, Mister Castle. Whatever deal you have made with the city’s mayor doesn’t matter any more.” Sorenson glared at Rick. “And if I find you sniffing around our scenes I’ll have you arrested and tried for obstruction of justice.”

“Oh, do not worry. I’m busy researching an old case from the 19th century. A vigilante who hung his victims from trees. I’m going with the hypothesis that he returned from the dead to continue his crusade against criminals who escaped the law.” Rick waited until the agent drew breath to answer him, then continued: “For my next book, of course.” Then he leaned forward, and his smile slipped while he lowered his voice. “And should you try to keep me from researching a historical case that’s 150 years old, then I’ll bury you. With my lawyer. He managed to get the better of two of my ex-wives’ lawyers; an agent trying to restrict me from researching ancient history for petty reasons won’t even be a challenge.”

Vi snickered, having heard him despite the distance. Beckett grimaced, but acted as if she hadn’t heard it. Agent Clapton hadn’t heard it - he had been busy checking Vi’s permits. And, apparently, talking shop about guns. Castle had thought he had heard the remains of a faint Texan accent…

“Anyway… we’ll be off this ‘federal case’ now, Agent.” Castle grinned at him, then turned to smile to Beckett. “We’re still on for the evening, I hope. I’m thinking Italian, there’s this new spaghetti recipe… to die for. I’ll tell you all about the next book too.” Glancing back at the FBI agent, he added: “Before you blow a gasket: All we’ll be talking about are demons and other supernatural stuff. You should know that Kate wouldn’t be as unprofessional as to compromise a case and risk a killer getting away for personal reasons.”

Beckett opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Ah, of course. Around eight?” Of course she had understood what he had been implying. She was brilliant, after all.

Beaming, he said “Splendid! I’m sure you’ll be dressed to kill, as usual.”

“Oh, of course.”

Now that kind of smile had too many teeth for his taste. And health.

*****

“You know, the detective will kill you for implying you’re in a relationship in front of her ex,” Vi mused, back in the Shelby.

“I’m sure she’ll understand that we’ve got a demon to catch and can’t afford to let Agent Testosteroneson’s insecurities interfere with that,” Castle said, with slightly more confidence than he felt.

“She might delay the execution then, until the case is over.” Vi snorted. “I call dibs on your blades.”

“Good enough. By then, she’ll have calmed down.” And maybe also have finally been won over by his ruggedly handsome charm. “And Alexis gets first pick.”

“I’m not sure if you’re far too optimistic about the detective, or too pessimistic about our chances to catch the demon. Probably both.” Vi shook her head.

Castle didn’t deign that with an answer. “We need to get our hands on Dr. Burton’s estate. He might have information about how this demon was summoned or created in the first place.”

“Isn’t that still sealed up by the courts?”

“Until Miller’s heirs have settled their dispute, yes.” Which could take years, given the amount of money involved.

“Oh, goodie! I get to be a catburglar again!” Vi grinned.

“We will get to be catburglars,” Castle corrected her. Vi was smarter than she acted - another legacy Buffy would have to answer for, one day - but she hadn’t his experience in sifting through books. He’d been a librarian for ten years after all, and they couldn’t steal all the books and sort out the relevant ones later. They had to do that on-site.

“You? You’re not a catburglar. More like a dogburglar. You know, slightly clumsy, not as elegant or smart as a cat, loud…”

“Are you quite finished?”

“Let me think… “

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh, touchy!”

Castle sighed. Rupert had been right - Watchers got no respect from their Slayers. He blamed Buffy, again.

*****

“What were you thinking, insinuating that we were a couple?”

Detective Beckett arrived at eight, as beautiful as ever, and, sadly, quite annoyed. At Castle too.

“Good evening, Detective.” He took her coat and hung it on the rack. She was wearing a dress under it, which was a surprise. Before he could comment on that though, she noticed where his eyes had been straying to.

“That’s just to help keep up that cover you forced on me.”

“Ah. Quite ingenious, wasn’t it?”

“Annoying is the word you’re looking for.”

“Oh, come on - being mistaken for my girlfriend is hardly a hardship. Just look at Vi.” He pointed at his Slayer, who was busy in the kitchen polishing off the hors-d’oeuvres not already on the couch table. “Hey!”

Vi stuffed the last canape into her mouth with a grin and just the slightest hint of guilt. Alexis, already sitting on the couch, just shrugged her shoulder - she had long since stopped trying to keep Vi from ‘surplus food’, as the Slayer called anything not already served.

“You always tell people she’s not your girlfriend.”

“And they never believe me anyway.” He frowned for an instant. “It can’t be Esposito or Ryan; they know better than to tease you. So… Sorenson?”

Sighing, Kate sat down and grabbed a salmon canape. “Hello Alexis.” She nodded at the girl. “He told me not to come. When I refused, he tried to order me not to.”

It took an effort for Castle not to grin as he sat down in a seat himself. That had been a very big mistake of the agent - trying to order Beckett around? The headstrong detective hated that.

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. “No comment?”

He shook his head. “I prefer to let stupidity speak for itself.”

“That’s new,” Kate said.

“Since when?” Vi yelled back from the kitchen. Of course she would have overheard that.

“Dad?” Even his own daughter sounded honestly surprised.

“Hey!” He acted all wounded, but noted with pleasure that the detective laughed at that. Her face softened for a moment, losing that hint of bitterness and grim stubbornness.

Vi joined them carrying a tray of drinks. Non-alcoholic ones. “So, did the agent act all macho-viking?”

“No,” Beckett shook her head. “He was all about rules and regulations and how that meant he could tell me what to do in my private time.”

“He actually thought you would be unprofessional?” Castle was surprised. Maybe the fed didn’t know his ex as well as Rick had thought.

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but you are aware that we’re about to break those regulations, aren’t you?” Beckett raised her eyebrows at him.

“Only if the FBI actually made headway in the case. Which I doubt, since they’re looking for a human killer.”

“They’re looking for Miller’s helper.”

“Oh.” Maybe Soandson was a bit more capable than Castle had thought. Or lucky. Or it was Clapton. “That might make breaking into Miller’s house a bit more difficult.”

“What?!”

If Beckett had been drinking, Castle would now be wearing orange juice.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

The detective had calmed down after her initial overreaction to a little breaking and entering. The new recipe - which was to die for - had helped with that.

Richard Castle smiled winningly. “It’s not as we’re actually breaking the law. We’ve got a right to investigate, we’re just … ah… circumventing red tape in the name of …”

“...not wanting to bother with going through the proper channels?” Beckett said.

“... I was about to say ‘keeping the needed secrecy’.” Rick didn’t quite pout. But he felt like it.

“Really. And it’s not because breaking into a sealed house makes for a better story than filing a request to examine the contents?”

“Perish the thought!” Castle put his right hand on his heart. “I’d never jeopardize our sacred duty for such selfish reasons!”

The detective raised her eyebrows at him.

“Ah, you should have heard the old Council. All full of pathos and duty. After ten years, some stuck with me, I’m afraid.”

She didn’t look like she bought that, but didn’t pursue the matter. He counted that as a win.

“He’s just very fond of dramatic expression.” Vi smirked.

Rick coughed. “Anyway. The other reason why we’re doing this slightly unorthodoxically is that going through the proper channels takes too much time. The bureaucracy at the FBI is a bit slow despite the importance of our task.”

“Does the FBI have a demon hunting team?” Beckett asked, in a voice that seemed torn between fascination and horror.

“Not like that. But there are a number of people in the Bureau who are aware of the supernatural,” Rick explained.

“Some of them even have some demon blood,” Vi added. That didn’t seem to please the detective at all.

“I suspect that is the cause of the occasional … delay … we encounter when going through our proper backchannels.” Rick sighed. “The fact that instead of one Slayer there are now hundreds did kind of scare a number of peaceful demons too.”

“Why would that be the case?”

Vi grinned widely. “They think we’re always just one second away from slaying them.

“They’re not entirely wrong though. Slayers got the urge to slay. Demons, that is. Of course, they control themselves around the non-violent demons, but I could imagine that demons and half-demons would be a bit nervous around a Slayer.”

“That’s just their guilty consciences!” Vi chuckled.

Beckett frowned. “They are scared of you, and you find that funny?”

Vi nodded. “Yes!”

Rick coughed before things could get tense. Tenser. “Anyway. I would simply buy the notes, but I fear Detective Sonoton would not take well to such an offer and would interfere.”

Beckett nodded. “He doesn’t like you.”

“Why wouldn’t he? Must be jealous.” Rick nodded. He ignored the detective’s eye-rolling and how Vi giggled at what Beckett must have said under her breath. Many men would feel threatened by a famous, ruggedly handsome and rich author. If Detective Soso knew Castle was also a veteran demon hunter, he’d probably have an aneurism. “As you can see, we’re practically forced to break into the house if we want to avoid further loss of life.”

Beckett didn’t look that convinced, but she didn’t voice any further objections.

*****

“You know, even a dog would have been a bit quieter than you,” Vi whispered.

“Says the girl with supernatural stealth and hearing,” Castle spat out after hauling himself over the wall surrounding Miller’s house. “Besides, there’s no one around. It’s not as if this building is under surveillance.”

“I still say we should have used the detective as a distraction.”

“That would make her an accomplice. Even if she would have agreed to that - and I doubt she would have - it wouldn’t have been fair. If we get caught we’ll get bailed out. If she gets caught she’ll lose her career.”

“Good point. We don’t want another amateur demon hunter around to keep from getting killed,” Vi whispered into her headset while she scrambled up the wall to the balcony. Both were clad in the classic black turtlenecks and slacks associated with catburglars everywhere.

“She could hire on with us.” That would be a nice development, Rick thought.

“And you’d be her boss.”

That wouldn’t be that nice. Castle doubted that Beckett was the type to have an affair with her boss. She was rather the type who’d vehemently oppose such a relationship. “Good point. One woman with a temper is enough for me to handle.”

“Yes... what do you mean?” Vi asked.

“No further questions, your honour.” Rick smirked at the silence that followed. He also dodged the end of the rope ladder that was thrown down right at his head rather than gently lowered - sometimes, Vi was just so predictable.

A short climb later, the two were inside the house. According to the list they had from the court, the notes were in the library. Sadly, the list was neither well-organized nor adequately detailed. The old Council would have had Castle’s hide had he ever delivered such shoddy work. The new Council… Rupert had been a librarian for years. Not even Buffy crossed him when it came to book-related things.

Rick didn’t mind searching the library for an hour or two. That was not the problem. The problem was Vi waiting for an hour or two. Slayers didn’t have the best attention span to start with, and a bored Slayer was a disaster waiting to happen. Especially in a library. Fortunately, as a veteran Watcher, he was prepared for that. “Vi, since we’re already here, go check the house for any remaining demon-related things.”

“Gotcha, Rick.” Vi nodded and left him to his search. That should keep her busy for half an hour or so. After that… hopefully her cell phone’s battery was good enough so she could play a game or watch some series.

*****

“We’ve got company coming. The Feds.”

“What?” Rick hadn’t made much progress. He could tell which shelves and storage boxes the notes were not in.

“Sorenson. I told you, we should have gotten Beckett to honey trap him.” Vi walked without making any sound.

“You did nothing of that sort!” Rick whispered while he hastily stored the boxes he had been rifling through.

“Well, I should have! Come on, Rick. They’re almost at the door!” Vi grabbed him and started to drag him away. “And try to be a bit more silent this time!” Why were women always telling him that?

But she was correct - when Castle and his Slayer were leaving the library, even he could hear the agents… arguing?

“Why couldn’t that have waited until tomorrow?” That was Clapton, complaining.

“It’s not as if you had a hot date tonight.” That that was Mister Ex-boyfriend.

“Damn, Will! This is about Beckett having a date, right? You’re planning to call her as soon as you find something, hoping she’ll rush to you?”

Castle would have waited to hear the agent’s answer, but Vi dragged him out to the balcony. He was rather certain that Agent Clapton was right on the mark though.

*****

Back in their car a few blocks over - one of the disposable ones, not his beloved Shelby - Rick shook his head. “I take back what I said about Agent Jealouson competence. If he already made the connection to those notes…”

“He could just be stumbling around in the dark, trying to impress Beckett,” Vi said, smirking.

Castle grinned, then realised she was smirking at him. “I’m not doing this to impress the dear detective!”

“Rick, you joined the Watchers to impress a woman. Anything you say to the contrary looks not too convincing after that.”

Rick ground his teeth. Even ten years after his divorce, his first wife was making his life difficult!

*****

“You almost got caught, and you didn’t get the notes?” Beckett sounded even more annoyed than Castle felt. Though she also sounded annoyed at him. He looked at his daughter, who had been keeping the detective company while Vi and Rick had been away, but she just looked at him with a slightly disappointed expression too. Did everyone expect him to be a professional burglar? He just looked the part in his turtleneck!

“Well, it’s your fault,” Vi said, snacking on a bowl of chips.

“What?” Beckett turned towards the Slayer, and Rick had the sudden, irrational urge to find cover.

“Yeah. Your ex-boyfriend is only working the evening in the hope of finding something that he can call you about, to wreck your imaginary date with Rick.” Vi pointed at him with the thumb of her left hand, almost dropping a chip on the carpet.

Beckett blinked. “That’s ridiculous!”

“That’s what Clapton said.”

“And we’d have heard his answer if you hadn’t dragged me away,” Rick cut in.

“I heard his answer. He denied it, of course. But he was lying.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that Will would act like, like… Castle?” Beckett stood there, hands on her hips, a small muscle in her face twitching.

Castle couldn’t help but smile when her phone started to ring right then.

“A date says this is your not quite that professional special agent!”

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“... yes, I’ll see you in the morning.” Beckett hung up and stashed her cell phone while Richard Castle was carefully not saying ‘told you so’.

He had been correct - it had been Agent So-So. Sadly, the detective hadn’t taken his bet. Unfortunately, the fed had called because he had found an unregistered phone number in one of Miller’s notes - probably dumb luck, the author thought. “It could be his drug dealer. Did he do drugs?”

“He didn’t do drugs according to the autopsy. At least not the illegal kind,” Beckett said.

“Oh? Did he go for the organic variants? The kind of exotic herbs the government hasn’t yet banned?” Castle didn’t think so, the man hadn’t had shown the - at least in Rick’s opinion - typical signs for a new age or wiccan faith at his home. He had been invested in the occult, not in a religion.

“There were some trace amounts of an unidentified substance in his blood.”

“That might have been the special Wendigo seasoning,” Castle speculated, then blinked when the detective made a face and Vi grinned. “Too soon?” Apparently it was too soon for jokes about cannibalism. “Anyway, without the number, and the notes, we’re reduced to the tiring way of investigating: Asking around.” He sighed, and looked at Beckett.

“Stop the puppy dog eyes, Castle. I’m not getting you the number, or the files. I’ll call you in if we’re close to a demon, of course, but I’ll not break the law.” Beckett met his pleading gaze with a stern one.

“Any further, you mean,” Castle corrected her, a bit petulantly. Now she and Agent Meddleson were an ‘us’ again? Rick didn’t like that at all. Even though she hadn’t rushed to the other man’s side. “OK. I guess you’ll be working the agent, and we’ll be working the demonic underbelly of the city.” He looked at Vi, who understood. They didn’t need Beckett to get them the number, especially not if she - unknowingly - distracted the Fed while the Slayer did her thing.

“If Miller had any contact to this… ‘demonic underground’, will Will find demons?”

Castle didn’t quite grin. Agent Will-Will… that had a ring to it. He coughed. “It’s not easy to make contact with them, not without someone who introduces you.” Or a Slayer to bust some demon heads.

“Like the mob?”

“Exactly!” He smiled widely. “Nikki Heat will be facing the vampire mob in the next book, hindered more than helped by a bumbling and possessive Federal agent.”

“There’s not exactly a vampire mob though, right?”

“No, there isn’t. Though some vampires form families, and others form gangs, it’s rarely on a size to rival a real mob. Mind you, those can grow a lot, if left unchecked, but they don’t really form the sort of network a syndicate needs.”

“Why? Wouldn’t the old vampires have a network of contacts, and ‘minions’?” Beckett didn’t quite wince at the use of that word, but it was clear she didn’t like it. “Is the racism against vampires that bad?”

“Mostly. Vampires are seen as the weakest demons, half-breeds, and the few that make demons fear them are seen as individuals, not vampires. But apart from the Slayers knocking them down, vampires don’t play well with each other. As long as they are weak, minions will obey and follow their sire’s lead. But once they grow in power, they tend to either split off, or try to replace their sire,” Castle said.

Vi demonstratively yawned. “Thank you, professor.” She turned to the detective. “Few vampires live that long. And those who do don’t want to make waves either; if they started a big organisation, they’d attract the kind of attention that shortens their lifespan. My attention.” She shrugged with a grin.

“Watch that ego, Vi, we still need room to breathe in here,” Castle admonished her. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Beckett shook her head, but seemed either amused or reassured. Either was good. He smiled at her. “So… since you seem to have picked up a stalking ex, would you like to use my guest room, to avoid getting ambushed at your flat?”

“Why do I think I’d trade one stalker for another in that case?” Beckett answered, drily, while getting up.

“Because your trust in others has been damaged by Agent Stalkinson’s possessive and utterly unprofessional attitude?” He winked at her with his best smile.

That got a laugh out of her. She still didn’t stay though.

*****

“So, he’s taken all of Dr. Burton’s notes?” Rick asked while brewing two coffees, one for himself, and one for Vi.

“Yes. He took it to the evidence locker in the Precinct. Can you sick your lawyers on him?”

Rick was rather certain this latest fed-shaped hitch in his plans was due to Agent Jealouson having taken offense at Rick telling him off the day before. He shook his head. “No. If it’s considered evidence, there’s nothing they can do.”

“We won’t let him get away with that though, right?”

“No, we won’t.” He smiled over his cup at his Slayer. “But we’ll have to look into the underground angle first. He had to have gotten supplies, and information. That sort of ‘unsealing ritual’ can’t be done with household supplies.”

“Well… that sounds like Watcher work.” Vi finished her coffee. How she had managed that without scalding herself, Castle couldn’t tell; he was still taking careful sips from his cup. “I’ll be…”

“Right next to me,” Rick cut her attempt to escape off.

“Wouldn’t you rather have me make sure the Fed won’t put the moves on the detective?” Vi asked innocently.

Rick opened his mouth to agree, then shut it. “Nice try. No, we’ll both be safer if you’re with me instead of getting into trouble on your own.”

“So, I’ll get into trouble with you then?”

“We won’t get into trouble. You’re simply insurance.”

*****

“Who names their shop ‘Wicked Goods’?” Rick shook his head.

“Hey, it’s a good pun!” Vi said.

“For a teenager who still thinks ‘wicked’ is a cool word.”

“Well, if you’re too old to understand teeangers, you’re too old, period.”

Rick coughed. “I’m a parent of a teenager. I’m contractually required not to understand them.”

“Well, in your and Alexis’s case the traditional roles are more like reversed.”

“So, I’m the teenager? I guess that means I’m not too old then.” Castle grinned at his Slayer and entered the shop. It was run by a rather smarmy horned demon who went by the name of ‘Jack’. Castle rarely visited the shop since it tended to keep their business to the harmless crowd of wanna-be witches. But it was on the list, so to speak.

“Welcome to the…” the way Jack trailed off when he recognized Castle and Vi didn’t bode well for their investigation.

“Hi Jack. It’s not a social call, we’ve got a few questions about your business. Namely, your list of customers.”

“That’s confidential information, Mister.”

“He just pushed a button under the counter,” Vi stated, moving forward.

Before she reached Jack, two huge, hulking minotaur-like demons entered from the back, roaring something, probably an insult, in a demonic language Rick wasn’t familiar with.

“Kill them!” Jack shrieked, and turned to run out the back.

He wasn’t fast enough to escape a Slayer, though. Vi vaulted over the counter, grabbed the demon and threw him to the side. Then she had to dodge a wild swing from one of the monsters.

Rick really wished he had his flamethrower with him when the second demon charged at him. The Watcher dove to the side, between two shelves with crystals and pots. The monster didn’t manage to stop and crashed into another shelf, toppling it, and sending more down to the ground, littering the floor with broken merchandise. The demon managed to run over two such shelves, then stumbled over the third, and crashed into the wall.

Rick had drawn his pistol in the meantime, and put a few rounds into the monster’s back and head, though the bullet wounds looked superficial. The demon roared and stood up, red eyes almost glowing above its flat nose, looking none the worse for wear.

Rick shifted his aim downwards, and emptied his magazine into the monsters groin while he moved back towards Vi, almost stumbling over Jack, who was trying to crawl away. The minotaur screamed in pain - at least Rick hoped it was pain - and folded over, but it didn’t go down. Instead it seemed to be recovering. Rick kicked Jack while he was at it, sending the smaller demon to the floor again, then glanced at Vi. The Slayer was busy pulling her sword out of her demon’s chest.

“Vi! One mad demon incoming!” Castle shouted while he jumped over the counter, which was hopefully solid enough to stop another charge.

“What did you do to him?” Vi asked while she turned around, then ducked when what looked and sounded like half a ton of demon hit the counter, cracking the solid wood. Snarling, the Slayer jumped on the counter and slashed at the monster while it was still reeling. Castle, standing up himself and reloading his pistol, noted that the sword had a far better effect on the demon than his bullets had - the monster must be vulnerable to the cold iron, or the silver the blade was inlaid with.

Vi kicked the demon in the head, sending it tumbling back into the wreckage of the shop’s main room, and followed it with a yell. Castle saw Jack trying to escape again, and stopped him with a few warning shots. “Stay put, Jack,” he ordered while Vi and the demon tore through the room.

*****

“So much for ‘simply being insurance’.” Rick shook his head at the destruction Vi had visited upon the ‘Wicked Goods’ magic shop and some of its non-human employes.

Vi shrugged. “Well, you know, with the deductibles today, I thought you should get something out of your insurance.”

Rick laughed at that, then stared down at the proprietor of the shop, who was cringing in a corner, staring at the carnage. “Now, Jack, about those customer records…”

“They’ll kill me if I snitch!”

Who was he talking about? “Who are they? Who are you afraid of?”

Jack shook his head, one of his broken horns falling off completely. “No… no… No!” Suddenly, he jumped up and charged at Rick, screaming like a madman. Before the demon reached him though, Vi was there, kicking him back into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster.

“Now, that was a mistake, Jack. Then again, you did try to have us killed already…” Rick trailed off when he saw the demon choke on green blood, then shiver and grow still.

Vi smiled weakly when he glanced at her. “He was coming right at you… and I didn’t think he was that fragile…”

“Well, can’t be helped now.” Castle ransacked the shop’s ledgers and packed them into a bag with the shop’s logo on it. “We’d not have let him get away with attempted murder anyway. But a bit more information would have been nice. Now let’s get a fire started.”

*****

Once outside, Vi looked at the flames flickering inside the shop. “You really like burning things down.”

Rick shrugged. “Who doesn’t? And it’s the easiest way to hide what really went on there.” A message to the right people ensured that this fire wouldn’t be investigated.

“So, what was that about? Demons don’t usually suicide by Slayer, do they?”

“Only the dumbest vampires. But those weren’t.” Rick answered. “I don’t know yet. But they wouldn’t have tried to kill us over some material used to unseal the Noose Demon. Unless something else is going on here.”

“You’ll sending it to London then?”

“Yes. Scans at least.” Maybe they’d find out more about the Noose Demon as well, while they were at it. Rick wouldn’t mind someone else doing part of the work, after he got almost killed over a simple question.

He’d still have to do the scans himself though - Alexis was at school, and Vi wouldn’t be in the right state of mind to do such work right after a tough fight.

Which was actually a good reason to do the scans himself, and soon.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“So, what did London say?”

Richard Castle looked up from his computer and saw Vi enter his office. “I only finished mailing the scans a minute ago.”

“Perfect timing then!” Vi grinned and sat down on his desk. The Slayer had changed into exercise clothes upon their return, and had worked out for a few hours while he did all the scans.

“More suspicious minds than mine would think it’s a bit too perfect,” he stated, blandly.

Vi chuckled, neither confirming nor denying anything. “It’s not as if you’d want me to help. You know how Slayers are with computers. We break things too easily. Just ask Buffy.”

“I noticed that all the breaking happens when it’s related to ‘boring work’, and never when it’s related to surfing the web or chatting.” Castle stared at her.

Vi coughed. “Well, just a coincidence, I’m sure. Just ask Buffy!” She grinned and fiddled with one of his paperweights - that one was a figurine carved out of a tusk from a Brz’t Demon.

“I should, actually,” Castle said. Vi didn’t even flinch, though. The girl knew Buffy would back her up.

He sighed in defeat. For now - he’d get back at her. Probably. His computer beeped - he had mail. He looked at it and frowned. “That was a quick response… oh.”

“What’s the matter?” Vi put the bone figurine down.

He looked at her with a rather forced smile. “The scoobies are coming to New York.”

Her response wasn’t printable.

*****

 


	12. Here Come the Scoobies

**New York, October 2009**

“Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Faith and Spike? Why are they coming to New York? Did someone tell Buffy Manolo Blahnik has a sale?” Vi was pacing in his office like a caged panther.

“That would explain Buffy, but not the rest of the Scoobies,” Richard Castle said. He was calmly sitting at his desk, as befitted a Watcher. And fighting the urge to pace himself.

“Giles would know that they’d need everyone to keep Buffy from spending all of the Council’s budget on shoes!” Vi shook her head.

Rick chuckled. “To be fair, they are usually cheaper than new swords.”

That earned him a glare from the redhead. “That’s a business expense! I need weapons to kill demons with!”

“More swords than you can carry, much less wield?” Castle raised his eyebrows. He still hadn’t the Spock move down, but he was getting closer. Or so he hoped.

“Weapons break. It’s best to have several replacement blades ready for emergencies.” Vi sniffed. “That’s called being prepared and thinking ahead. Something you keep telling me I should be doing!”

“You’re past the ‘being prepared’ point, and way into the ‘being obsessed’ point.” Castle’s wallet and credit cards would agree, if they could talk.

“It’s still cheaper than your midlife-crisis bait car!” New York’s resident Slayer folded her arms and huffed at her Watcher.

“Does that mean you’d prefer a station, or a mini van? Your wish is my command!”

“You wouldn’t!” Vi looked shocked. “Consider what your dear detective would think!”

“She’d certainly applaud my choice of a more economical and sensible car.” Women liked responsible men.

Vi gaped at him, then scoffed and looked away. He counted that as a victory in the eternal struggle between wise Watcher and foolish Slayer. Then Castle sighed. “Joking aside, the Scoobies are not coming for a shoe sale. Apparently,” he said, glancing at the message he had received, “we’ve stumbled upon something matching a prophecy.”

Vi’s comment was, once again, very expressive, but not fit to be printed.

*****

“Hi Dad, hi Vi!”

“Hi, Alexis!” Castle looked up from his laptop and smiled at his daughter. “Take your bugout bag, you’re leaving New York at once!” He pointed at the duffel bag he had placed next to the door.

“What?” His daughter stared at him, then narrowed her eyes, opening the bag. “Did you go through my things and just picked random clothes? I have an emergency travel bag ready under my bed!” She picked the bag up and walked towards him.

He should have expected that Alexis was prepared, Castle realised. His daughter was the responsible one of the family, after all. “We have no time to lose. Your plane leaves in…” he looked at the laptop “... two hours, and with traffic as it is, you don’t have that much time to reach the airport.” He blinked. “Vi! You’re driving Alexis!”

“What? Dad, have you gone crazy?” Alexis put her hands on her hips, scowling at him. “I’m not setting a foot outside the apartment until you tell me what’s going on!” Apparently, his daughter was not quite as sensible as he had thought.

“The Scoobies are coming to visit,” Vi said from the table, where she was cleaning her weapons.

Alexis’s face lit up, then she scowled again. “And you’re sending me away? Dad! Stop trying to be an overprotective parent, or I’ll really go to England for college!”

Ordinarily, Castle would have been overjoyed at the hint that his daughter was not planning to study abroad, but they were pressed for time. “Honey, why do you think the Scoobies are visiting?”

“There’s a shoe sale at Macy’s, and they don’t want Buffy to waste all of the Council’s money without getting their cut?”

Castle blinked, then shook his head. “No, our latest case is related to a prophecy.” He realised two things as soon as he had finished: He was starting to think like a detective, and this had been the worst thing he could have said.

“A prophecy? Dealing with New York?” Alexis sounded far too eager. She was supposed to be the sensible one of the family! “Dad! You can’t expect me to leave in the middle of a crisis!”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I can expect you to do!”

“No, you can’t. You’ll need all the help you can get.” Alexis shook her head, reminding him far too much of her mother when she was being stubborn. Or his mother when she was being foolish.

“That’s what the Scoobies are coming for. They’ll also need your room.” Castle folded his arms.

“What?” Alexis glared at him. “We have a guest room here, and Vi has three guest rooms!”

“Hey! Two of those rooms house my sword collection! I can’t trust Buffy or Faith near it, they’ll try to nab the best blades for themselves!” Vi supported her Watcher, as a good Slayer should, Castle noted with satisfaction.

“They wouldn’t do that!” Alexis said.

“Faith would!” Vi said.

“She’d give them back… eventually.”

Castle couldn’t help but noticing that his responsible, young daughter seemed to be far too familiar with Faith. He couldn’t let himself be distracted, though. “Alexis… this is too dangerous for you. Please, for me, take a trip over the pond, and visit your mum. I couldn’t bear losing you.”

“No.” Alexis folded her arms. “I’m not going to hide and worry about you. I’m old enough to help with apocalypses. The Scoobies did it at my age”

“You’re not old enough! You’re barely fifteen!” Castle said.

“I’ll never be old enough in your opinion, Dad!” She huffed.

“Well, of course not!” Castle blinked. “I mean…”

“I know what you mean! You don’t want me to become Watcher. You don’t want me to follow in your and Mum’s footsteps. You want me to be safe and protected until I die from old age.”

That was a very precise summary of Castle’s plans for his daughter, if he was honest. Of course, he wouldn’t admit that.

“But, Dad! I’m going to be a Watcher. I’ve been studying and training for years already!”

“What? Training?” For years? He had taught her to defend herself, any responsible parent would have done the same. And he had taught her about the supernatural threats, of course. But… Dear Lord, he had turned his daughter into a Watcher!

She made a very familiar dismissive gesture. “That’s not important. Important is that you expect me to leave the city and do nothing while my family, my friends, and millions of people are in danger. I will not do that when I can do something to help, instead.” She looked at him with a fairly decent imitation of what Willow called her ‘resolve face’.

Castle realised that she wouldn’t budge. And that even if he managed to tranq her and ship her to England - his desperate contingency plan - she’d return with the first plane. He muttered a curse under his breath.

“Dad!” His daughter frowned at him. “Don’t curse.”

Vi was laughing.

Castle sighed. “I guess I have raised you too well.” He couldn’t help but feel proud too, though.

“That you did, Dad,” Alexis said, smiling.

Of course, Vi had to ruin the moment. “I thought you raised him?”

He glared at his Slayer while his daughter laughed.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Did you order enough groceries for two more Slayers?”

“Yes.” Richard Castle knew how much one Slayer ate - he paid Vi’s bills, after all - so of course he had thought of increasing their standing order.

“Do we have enough doughnuts too?”

“Is that a trick question? You know those have to be fresh!” Castle narrowed his eyes at his daughter, who was smirking behind the list she had made. “I have bought enough of those abominations against nature that Xander loves to last a week, though.” He pointed at a case full of Twinkies.

“That won’t last two days,” Alexis said, shaking her head.

“What?” Rick blinked, Xander wasn’t a teenager any more, he couldn’t… Of course the man could! Castle mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath.

“Don’t act jealous, Dad! Everyone’s growing old!” Alexis frowned at him. “Besides, too many cakes are bad for you.”

“Slayers are not growing old!” Vi cut in from where she was pushing furniture around - they’d need the large table for all of their guests.

Castle glanced at her. She was correct in that Slayers were not growing old. But that was because they died in battle before age could creep up on them.

“Did you order enough beer as well?”

“What?” Rick whipped his head around. “Beer?”

“Well… Faith is coming.” His little angel shrugged. “And you know how she is after a night spent slaying.”

“I don’t, actually.” Castle’s experiences with Faith’s habits was mostly based on secondary and biased - but usually trustworthy! - sources. He didn’t think Rupert would be pulling his leg about such matters. “But you seem very familiar with her habits.”

“Err… Mum told me tales to warn me off?” Alexis was smiling just a bit too widely. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she looked away. He’d have to talk to Mary about this.

“Anyway, I think we’ve covered all important matters. We’re ready for the Scoobies.” His daughter tried to change the topic. Rick would have been proud for her finally acting not as straitlaced as her mother, but he’d have preferred if she hadn’t have done that right when he needed her to be as responsible as possible.

“Nobody’s ready for the Scooby Gang!” Vi said.

“If you’re starting to quote Monty Python, know that I will retaliate with extreme prejudice!” Castle interrupted her.

“I think she would have said ‘Nobody expects the Scooby Gang’ in that case, Dad.” Alexis helpfully informed him.

“She’s always mangling our language, she’ll mangle quotes as well.” Castle ignored the indignant “Hey!” from his Slayer. As a successful author, he was the expert there.

“But you’re wrong,” Vi said. “You forgot one thing: Detective Tightass doesn’t know about the Scoobies. And she’s bound to visit regularly.”

Castle winced. He hadn’t known that when he had created their cover. Sometimes he was too clever for for his own good.

*****

Detective Kate Beckett was a very observant person; she knew as soon as she had entered Castle’s apartment that something was wrong. Something other than their current case, at least. “Alright, Castle, spill!” she said, right when he was about to greet her.

The author closed his mouth, then smiled. “Spill?”

She rolled her eyes. With all the stress at work, she wasn’t in the mood for their games. Or any games. “Don’t give me that innocent act, Castle. You’re nervous, your daughter is nervous, and your not-girlfriend is fidgeting worse than usual. What did you do? Break into the evidence locker room?” He wouldn’t feel that nervous about it, not unless they had been caught - and Will would have informed her at once if Castle or Vi had been seen doing something illegal.

“We didn’t do anything!” Castle said. “You wound me, Detective!”

“Don’t tempt me!” She glared at him. “What. Is. Going. On?”

“Ah.” He cleared his throat. Stalling. “The leaders of the Watchers Council are coming to New York.”

“Most of them, Dad, not all of them,” Castle’s daughter piped up.

Beckett smiled at the girl, then turned back to Castle. “Your superiors are coming to visit?” She smiled. “I understand why you’re nervous; I’d be nervous too in your place.” The Council was based in London, after all. She could just imagine how well British gentlemen would like Castle’s usual attitude. Her smile widened. “And now you’re trying to act all prim and proper, so you will not get reprimanded.” That would be entertaining to see, she bet.

“Err… not exactly.”

Beckett frowned. Vi was laughing so hard, she was almost falling off her chair, supernatural grace or not, Alexis was hiding behind her laptop, but her shoulders were shaking, and Castle… Castle was smiling smugly.

He cleared his throat again. “The thing is… compared to the, ah, delegation from London, I’m the prim and proper one.”

“What?” She stared at him. Castle, prim and proper? Mister ‘My daughter’s the responsible one in my family’?

“They call themselves the ‘Scooby Gang’,” Vi said, still chuckling.

“What?”

They had to be joking, Beckett thought.

*****

“An apocalypse? Your ‘Scooby Gang’ is coming to New York to prevent an apocalypse?”

Richard Castle had known that Detective Beckett’s voice could reach that high a pitch. She must be really stressed, he realised. Time to calm her down. “Well… it’s not really an apocalypse, that’s just what we call events that could lay waste to a town or so.”

“We also call the world ending events apocalypses, though,” his Slayer cut in. Unhelpfully, as usual.

“But, this is not such a case. I think.” He shook his head. The Scoobies would have been using Willow to travel otherwise. Unless, of course, time wasn’t of the essence.

“What?”

“Dad! Vi!” Alexis scowled at both of them. “Stop trying to scare the Detective!” Ignoring his protestations, Castle’s daughter turned to Beckett and smiled. “The Scoobies are very experienced at dealing with such events.”

“Like they dealt with Sunnydale?” Beckett had taken off her jacket, but she hadn’t taken a seat.

Castle stiffened. That wasn’t a topic he liked to talk about. And not just because, contrary to his expectations at the time, ‘I have seen hell - no, really!’ wasn’t a good line to impress people.

“Sunnydale was on a Hellmouth,” Vi said. “New York isn’t.”

“What are we dealing with then? Zombie plague? Pestilence demons? Giant Sea Monsters? Evil Witches?”

Beckett knew his works by heart, Castle noted, smiling. “Something like that,” he said. “Nothing the Council’s finest can’t handle.” He blinked. “Don’t mention evil witches, though - Willow is sensitive about discrimination and stereotypes.” And she was very verbose when she felt the need to lecture people.

“Oh, yes,” Alexis nodded slowly. “Her rant about Harry Potter is very impressive. I used part of it in English Lit class.”

“Willow?”

“Ah, right!” Castle grinned. “You wouldn’t know. Willow is the Head Witch of the Council.”

“Also known as the Red Witch. Or Darth Willow,” Vi said.

“Don’t call her that either! Darth Willow, that is!” Castle quickly said, glaring at his Slayer.

“That sounds ominous.” Beckett was narrowing her eyes at them. “And… wait a minute! The Red Witch… Willow is Westlyn? The witch that ensouled a Master Vampire as her first spell? The witch that killed the knight threatening her family by bringing his castle down upon his head and sealed a Hellmouth?”

“Well… I took a few liberties when adapting her story to my books, but, essentially? Yes.” Castle forced himself to keep smiling. He had received quite the lecture from Buffy and Xander during their stay at the Hamptons about using Willow as a character, or rather, about not using her since she was still dealing with her tragic past. While both had been cleaning their weapons. Subtle Scoobies were not.

Of course, shortly afterwards, Willow had taken him aside to ‘help him with a few details about Wicca’ for his portrayal of her in his books. With Kennedy cleaning her weapons in the background.

There were many reasons why he had taken so long to write that particular book. His sense of self-preservation was just one of them.

“Willow’s a really nice witch!” Alexis spoke up. “She’s one of the smartest people I know, and a great hacker too!”

“And she can turn a man inside out with a flick of her fingers, and can go toe to toe with a hellgod for several minutes,” Vi said, smiling. “We’ll squash that prophecy problem easily with her on the job!”

Neither Castle’s nor Alexis’ glare seemed to impress the Slayer.

“Anyway, apart from Willow, Buffy and Faith are coming, as well as Dawn and Xander,” Castle said. “The two oldest - don’t call them that though - and most experienced Slayers, the Council’s Chief Linguist, and their Chief of Operations.” Castle had heard that Xander didn’t like his title, but his own proposal had been too silly even for the Scoobies.

“And Spike!” Alexis said, with a smile that was utterly inappropriate when talking about that vampire.

“Spike?”

“Ensouled Vampire,” Castle said in a flat voice, glaring at his utterly unrepentant daughter.

“Rick’s best friend,” Vi cut in, grinning.

Beckett raised her eyebrows.

“He’s not my best friend. He just thinks he is, since I saved his life - his existence - in Sunnydale,” Rick said. For a change, his glare had an effect on his Slayer and she looked apologetic - she should have known better than to bring up that event. He really did not want to remember Wood’s screams as the man burned alive.

“Anyway, Spike’s very old, over a century. He was a poet in Victorian London,” Alexis said.

“An old-fashioned British Gentleman?”

Beckett looked both confused and angry when everyone else broke out in loud laughter.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Rick!”

Richard Castle’s eyes widened when a brown-haired girl - woman - rushed towards him right out of the gate, her arms spread wide. He barely managed to brace himself - he had been leaning against a pillar in a casual and cool pose - before she wrapped herself around him as if she was a limpet mine. Quite an apt comparison, he thought, since the girl embracing him as if he was her long-lost lover was Dawn Summers. Sister to the very experienced, very dangerous and very protective of her last family Buffy Summers. Bane of demons and prospective lovers of Dawn everywhere - not that Castle would fit under either of those labels.

“Let me guess: Buffy was annoying during the flight, and you decided to annoy her back at the first opportunity, right?” he whispered, trying to pack as much of his own annoyance into his words as was possible.

“Right in one!”

Obviously, that hadn’t been enough. He could hear Dawn smile as she kept hugging him. And he could hear Vi chuckle.

“Dawn! Rick!”

And there came the Slayer. Carrying two oversized suitcases as if they were empty, and not loaded down with shoes, clothes and weapons, and with an expression that would send demon lawyers flying in panic - had sent demon lawyers sent fleeing, according to the latest gossip.

Rick managed to free one of his arms and wave at the tiny blonde. “Hi, Buffy!”

“Since Dawn will be obviously rooming with Richie Rick, I call dibs on her room.”

“Hi Faith. Dawn will not be sharing my room.” Much less his bed, Rick thought. Buffy wouldn’t kill him - probably, maiming might still be on the list - but Detective Beckett might not feel so merciful. Or, worse, turn to the waiting Agent Soandso.

“She certainly will not! Or we’ll send her right back to London - by FedEx!” Buffy was crossing her arms and looking far more cute than threatening to anyone who didn’t know her.

Dawn released Rick and turned to her sister. “Pf!” She stuck out her tongue at Buffy in the display of maturity Castle was used to from the leaders of the Watchers Council. He was so glad Beckett had to go to work and didn’t see this.

“Rick! Mate! How are you doing? Looking great!”

Once more Castle found himself being hugged far too familiarly, and once more he felt tempted - though in a quite different way. “Hello Spike,” he managed to say while Vi chuckled again.

“You know, this will be great - I love New York! Once we’ve dealt with this apocalypse, I think I’ll stay a bit longer. We can paint the town red, together - not in the bloody sense of course!”

Not for the first time, Castle wondered why he hadn’t let the damn vampire get staked in Sunnydale.

*****

“I can’t room with her!”

“Why not? Afraid you’ll fondle me in my sleep and wake up satisfied, B?”

“I’m not rooming with Buffy! Sharing a bathroom with her while growing up was bad enough!”

“That’s rich! You were usually still sleeping when I got up!”

“You are a Slayer, you don’t sleep!”

“I do sleep!”

“Yes, in class!”

“Rick, mate - don’t you have a balcony? I need a smoke.”

“Rick! I told you, Xander can room with me!”

“Not according to Anya, I can’t!”

“Or would you rather room with Spike?”

“Dad, tell them that the rooms are fixed. We’re not changing them on a whim.”

Rick covered his face with the palm of his hand. Not for the first time, he wondered how Rupert was still sane. It had to be karma - after having been blessed with a precocious, sensible and responsible daughter, he was now faced with a bunch of Scoobies.

*****

“Alright. Now that we’ve finally settled in,” Buffy stood at the head of Castle’s dinner table, glaring at an apparently unrepentant Dawn, “let’s plan how we’ll wreck another prophecy!”

Alexis raised her hand.

“Yes?”

“What exactly does the prophecy say?”

“Ah, right!” Buffy’s chuckled. “There’s apparently a cult that’s trying to free a big bad who was sealed millennia ago.” She sighed. “And of course, they botched the job, and now the seal is weakening, and we have to fix their mistake. ‘And as the vessels’ power grows, the prison’s weakens’... blah blah blah.” She dropped a large tome on the table and the librarian in Castle winced at how centuries-old books were treated by the Slayer.

“It sounds much more impressive in Greek,” Willow added. “An epic poem, actually.”

“Will - stopping the apocalypse first, demon poem literary criticism later, OK?” Xander smiled.

“Sorry!”

Buffy cleared her throat. “Anyway, that frog-tonguey demon you encountered is apparently part of that cult, and they are using rituals to drain the power of the seal into the people.”

Castle noticed Willow shuddering and mumbling something about truly evil frogs.

“I knew we should have killed the demon! But no, let’s not listen to Vi!” Castle’s Slayer pouted.

“Does that mean that they are using the seal for the ritual?” Castle asked, ignoring Vi’s outburst.

“The seal itself is a bit big.” Willow opened the book and tapped her finger at an illustration of a pentagram made of metal, big enough for a man to lie down in. “But they are likely using sympathetic crystals for the rituals.”

“Damn.” Castle frowned. That would have greatly shortened the available locations for their ritual. They still could track such a delivery, with a bit of luck - the demons must have smuggled that in, and that meant … he winced when he realised what that meant.

“But, those ‘vessels’ need to be descendants of the ones who sealed the demon in the first place. So, they can’t just use anyone for their icky rituals,” Willow said.

“And how many of those people are around?” Castle wasn’t an expert, but a bloodline reaching few millennia back probably meant there were millions of suitable vessels around.

“Not too many. Most of them lived isolated in a village on the Crimean Peninsula. It was destroyed during the Russian Civil War and most of the survivors fled to New York.”

“That’s the Russian Connection then!” Castle smiled. Then he remembered their other problem. “Ugh. What are the chances our Noose Demon is hunting down the potential vessels before they can be used in a ritual?”

Judging by the grim looks the rest of the table exchanged, he bet that they were rather high.

*****

A few hours later, things were, well, not exactly under control, but the Scoobies who had taken over Castle’s apartment - Vi’s apartment seemed to be only used to sleep, train, and store weapons - had settled down a bit. He saw the redheaded Slayer enter and slowly - for her - walk to the couch, sitting down with a groan. She looked rather battered, and not quite as cocky as usual.

Castle tried to hide his smirk as he grabbed a few Mars bars from the fridge and walked over to his Slayer. For once, it wasn’t him nursing bruises after a training session.

The redhead glared at him, then grabbed the chocolate bars and started to wolf them down. Castle sat down next to her and grabbed his smartphone. “I take it you had an intensive workout, hm? Good training for the real thing, right?”

The glare from his Slayer intensified as she recognised her own words. She didn’t say anything, though - not that she could with her mouth full of chocolate and caramel. Castle snapped a picture while acting as if he was looking something up - ‘Hamster’ would make a good caption for a little bit of blackmail.

“Laugh it up, old man! I’m certain they’ll want to spar with you too.”

“Buffy and Faith?” He shook his head. The two Slayers usually focused on the ‘minis’, as Faith still called the Slayers activated after her. “I trust you didn’t embarrass us.” That earned him another glare. Castle could get used to this. He reached over and patted Vi’s shoulder, then winced when she hissed in pain. “Sorry! Sorry! Just remember: They have a few years of experience on you, and, well… they’re the chosen two.”

Vi snorted. “I’ll just have to train harder!”

Rick nodded. “Indeed.” That should motivate Vi for months - Slayers were competitive like no one else he knew.

“With you,” Vi added, smirking.

Castle winced. He hadn’t considered that. Well, he’d deal with that once the current crisis had been solved.

“Where’s Alexis?”

“Showing Willow and Dawn her library and her computer.” And hopefully not bringing the federal cybercrime taskforce down on his head. His daughter should know better, Castle thought.

Vi turned her head towards him, then winced and rubbed her neck. “You know what that sounds like,” she said with a smirk.

He glared at her.

The Slayer smirked, then suddenly sniffed the air. Castle could see how her nostrils flared and she tensed up. “Blood.”

“It’s just Spike preparing his weetabix.” Castle still didn’t know if the vampire actually liked the cereal, or simply liked the reaction he usually received when he poured blood over it.

Vi made a face. “Isn’t it a bit… late for that?” It was almost dinner time.

“I’m a vampire, we get up in the evening,” the blonde undead said, sitting down in the seat across of them.

“It’s the middle of the night in England,” Castle said. He didn’t know if vampires suffered from jet lag. Maybe one of the new watchers would investigate that.

“Well, would you get up at dawn?” Spike grinned at him, then started eating his bloody cereal.

“Good point,” Castle said. He certainly wouldn’t get up early unless there was a case, or Alexis needed him - a Slayer and her Watcher usually worked at night.

“I can’t wait to hit the town again, see what changed since my last visit. Oh, those were the days...” Spike sighed, then blinked. “Well, but for the fact that I was an evil mass-murdering soulless demon then, of course.”

“Of course,” Castle said in the dryest tone he could manage.

Spike nodded, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which he then licked.

Castle didn’t flinch. He had seen worse, and more disgusting.

“So, when will your bird get here?” Spike put the bowl down on the couch table. Rick noticed Vi staring at it.

“She’s not my bird,” Castle said.

“He just wishes she was his bird,” Vi added, grinning.

Castle didn’t deign to answer that. Beckett was warming up to him. Slowly but surely.

When he heard the doorbell ring, he told himself that again.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

Detective Kate Beckett had had a tiring day at work. Will had spent almost as much time asking her about her ‘relationship’ to Castle as on the job of tracking down a serial killer. And she had spent most of her time dodging her ex-boyfriend’s questions - damn Castle for making Will think they had a relationship! And damn herself for going along with it! - as well as worrying that Will would actually find what he thought was a vigilante killer. And all that on top of worrying about a ‘not really apocalypse’ happening in the middle of her city!

Before she had known Castle, she hadn’t worried about parts of her city disappearing in a bottomless pit, or ending up in hell. And a zombie apocalypse had been a silly movie plot, not something to actually prepare for.

After parking her car, she leaned forward, resting her forehead on the steering wheel for a moment. To think that as a child, she had actually wanted to be a Vampire Hunter, or a Loremaster. “Be careful what you wish for, indeed,” she muttered.

Well, at least the leaders of the Watchers were here now, and would take care of the matter. Despite the circumstances, she was looking forward to meet the woman who had been the inspiration for Branda - Buffy Summers. Of course, Castle had claimed that compared to the Council’s leaders, he was a stuffy tweed-wearing librarian, but that was hyperbole. Had to be - Castle was one of the most immature men she knew, most of the time. This was likely an attempt at a tasteless prank - in his books, the characters often made jokes in dire situations, to break the tension. ‘Don’t mention her height, she’s sensitive about it’, indeed!

She chuckled, remembering a few particularly entertaining scenes from her favourite books as she entered the building Castle lived in.

*****

Beckett was greeted at the door to Castle’s apartment by a short blonde girl in skin-tight designer jeans, a top that showed far more skin than appropriate for the weather in New York, and high-heels that added at least 5 inches to her height. She still was short. “Hi! You must be Detective Beckett! I’m Buffy Summers! Oh, those are nice boots, where did you get them? They go so well with your slacks!”

Kate blinked. _That_ was Buffy Summers? She had trouble believing that. It wasn’t the height, or lack thereof - Vi proved that physical size and mass was irrelevant when it came to a Slayer’s power. No, it was the appearance, and even more so, the attitude. This wasn’t a Slayer, dressed in leather and acting like a big cat out on a prowl among the prey, this was a… Californian valley girl on Prozac. “Hello.” Kate managed not to stare - at least not too much.

“Buffy! Stop that!”

Beckett saw a taller, brown-haired girl - about 20 years old, Kate would guess - walk towards them. She was frowning.

“What?” The blonde turned around.

The other girl smiled at Beckett. “Hello. I’m Dawn Summers. Please excuse my sister; she refuses to grow up and tries to act like a teenager despite her advanced age.”

“What advanced age?”

Now the blonde sounded more like a Slayer… a teenage Slayer, though, Kate thought.

“Do you prefer old age?” Dawn looked down at Buffy. “You’re almost thirty!”

“Pardon?” Kate narrowed her eyes, but otherwise controlled herself. Thirty certainly wasn’t old!

“Ah… oops?” Dawn had the grace to blush.

“Please excuse my little sister’s horrible manners,” Buffy said with a wide smile. “She grew up with wolves, and then lived in a library for years. We’re still trying to teach her not to bite people when she wants something from them.”

“That’s funny coming from the girl who tried to raise me - and who went all cave woman on her friends once!”

“That was all the fault of demonic beer, and so not the point!”

Right when Kate was looking around for a hidden camera, Alexis arrived. “Detective Beckett! I thought I heard the door.”

Kate smiled at Castle’s daughter. “Hello, Alexis.” When the two girls in front of her turned around, she quickly mouthed ‘who are they?’ behind their back.

The redhead’s smile seemed to grow a bit forced. “I see you met Buffy and Dawn Summers. Please have a seat, I’ll fetch Dad - he’s been hiding in his office ever since this afternoon.” There was more than a hint of disapproval audible in her tone, too, Beckett thought.

“Hey - I’d have been hiding too, if Faith had hit on me!” Buffy said, chuckling.

“Oh, please!” Dawn rolled her eyes. “That’s _so_ not true!”

“What? It so is!”

Beckett almost expected the girl - the Slayer - to stomp her foot, judging by the blonde’s pouting expression. If that was the most experienced, and most powerful Slayer, then New York was doomed!

“Rick’s just acting coy,” a voice cut in.

Kate looked up and saw a woman descend the stairs from the upper floor. Even if she hadn’t known it was a Slayer from the fact that the girl had overheard them from that far away, the way the woman moved would have given it away. And she was wearing leather - tight leather. Like a biker. In a calendar. And she had the attitude, like Vi. Just more… impressive. As was her figure.

The woman walked up to the group, swaying her hips just a bit too much. And her smile was a bit too blatant too, Kate thought. She was trying too hard.

“You must be the cop,” she said. Boston, Kate thought.

Kate met the woman’s eyes. “And you are?”

“Faith.” The girl slowly, provocatively, looked Kate over, from her face down to her boots.

If the Slayer was trying to unnerve Kate, then she needed to step up her game - the detective was used to worse, much worse, from perps and suspects. And Castle. So, she returned the favour. That seemed to amuse the girl.

“Oh… I bet you’re fun in bed.” Faith even licked her lips. “All that tense posture, all that stern attitude must be hiding some kinky urges, am I right?”

“Faith!” Dawn Summers glared at the Slayer. Turning to Kate, she smiled again. “Please excuse her. She’s, well… Faith.”

“I’m just checking out the competition, D. Nothing to it.” Faith said, smirking.

“Competition?” Kate raised her eyebrows. Did the girl insinuate what she thought?

“For Rick.”

She did. Kate should tell the girl that there was no competition, and no relationship. Or interest. She pursed her lips instead and stared at the Slayer. “Ah.” Faith was acting a bit like Vi, Kate realised. Just… more so.

And Kate was used to Vi, by now. And she wasn’t about to give in to either girl. No matter what it was about.

“Detective Beckett! You’ve met our guests already!”

And there was Castle, walking towards her with a wide smile - was that relief? she wondered - while Alexis trailed behind him, looking a bit stressed.

“Castle.” She nodded curtly at him. This was, after all, entirely his fault. “Been hiding in your office, I heard.”

“What?” He stared at her, blinking, for a second, then took a deep breath. “I was not hiding, I was working! Unlike some others who should remain anonymous, I might add.” His pointed look at Buffy and Faith was anything but subtle. Kate blamed his mother being an actress with a flair for drama for Castle’s tendency to overact.

“We were working!” Buffy said.

“Working out, yes. Which reminds me - I still need to check your fitness, Rick.”

Faith’s leer left not question in Kate’s mind about how the girl wanted to check that. And that annoying author and demon hunter just smiled in response, instead of telling the girl off! Beckett couldn’t resist. “Really, Castle? Isn’t she a bit too… immature for you?” She ignored the mouthed ‘Old’ from Dawn. And the chuckling from Buffy.

“She was just kidding, my dear Detective,” Castle said, with one of his more infuriating smiles.

“If she’s coming with us when we kick demon ass, then I should check her fitness too,” Faith said.

Castle blinked again and let his eyes wander from Kate to Faith and back. “Oh…”

“Dream on, Castle,” Kate said drily.

“Oh, I will!” He was grinning widely and nodding his head.

Kate glared at him. That wasn’t what she had meant. She ignored Dawn and Alexis whispering to each other and grinning at her. She was here to save her city. Not to… compete with Slayers for annoying authors. She already had enough of that with Vi, even though there was nothing to compete for in either case.

Speaking of… “Where’s Vi, Castle?”

“She’s still in her flat. Resting,” Castle said.

“Are you going tweed on us, Rick?” Buffy stared at him. “You said ‘flat’, not ‘apartment’. Oh my god! British-ness is a chronic condition! Soon I’ll talk all stuffy-like and old as well!”

“Buffy!” Dawn palmed her face while Faith laughed.

And to think this girl was the model for one of Kate’s favourite characters!

*****

 


	13. Meeting the Mob

**New York, October 2009**

“That was just one little slip of the tongue,” Richard Castle said, shaking his head. “Ask my ex-wife - I’m quite far from being a proper Englishman.”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘gentleman’?” Detective Beckett - Kate, he reminded himself - said.

She seemed to be annoyed with him, for some reason - even though the Scoobies had been the ones to annoy her. He pouted at her. “Are you insinuating that I’m no gentleman?” He put his hand on his heart and put on his best English accent. “You wound me, Detective!”

“Don’t tempt me.” Beckett’s smile reminded him of a Slayer’s. No wonder the two oldest Slayers had been trying to play their dominance games, which they still refused to admit to. Slayers!

“See? He’s so going tweed!” Buffy said, nodding to her own words.

“There’s nothing bad about acting a bit more mature,” Castle’s traitorous daughter said.

“Oh, I have no doubt that Castle can act mature. But being mature?” Beckett shook her head.

“Hey!” He was standing right there!

“He’s plenty mature where it counts.” Faith was not helping.

Rick cleared his throat. “I think we should sit down for dinner. The lasagna should be ready any minute.”

“Oh! Dibs on the first casserole!”

“Buffy! You can’t call dibs on that!”

“I just did!”

“Don’t run inside!”

“There’s enough for everyone!” Rick yelled after them. “But anyone other than me who touches the oven will be fed last!” Alexis would hopefully keep them in line if that threat was not enough. He turned to Beckett, who was - again - shaking her head. “So, you’ve met the two most experienced Slayers. What do you think?” He flashed his most charming smile at her. She glared at him with an expression that made him wince. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be,” she said in a flat voice.

Once again he noticed how beautiful she was when she was angry. “I did warn you that the Scoobies do make me look stuffy.” Even though he was entirely correct, she glared at him again. It was as if she was blaming him for all of this!

“You’re trusting my city’s safety to a bunch of…?” She trailed of.

Either she lacked the words to describe the Council’s best experts and Slayers, or she remembered that Slayers had supernatural hearing, Castle thought. “I think you do not quite understand my situation, Kate,” he said. “Coming here was their decision.” And there was nothing he or anyone else with the possible exception of Rupert could have done to stop them.

She seemed to understand, if the Russian swear words she whispered were any indication. “I need a drink before dinner.”

“An apéritif? Your wish is my command!” He opened his liquor cabinet with a flourish. “What’s your favorite poison? I have a vast range of drinks to offer.” Strangely, that didn’t seem to impress her - she frowned even. And now she was staring at...

“Castle, why is there an empty blood bag in your liquor cabinet?”

Rick ground his teeth. He should have staked that damn vampire years ago!

Before he could explain that this was the fault of another of his house guests, the door opened, and Vi, Xander and the demon he was just about to mention entered.

Vi’s nostrils flared. “Mh… right on time!” his Slayer said, smiling widely. “Dinner will be served in an instant.”

“Dinner will not be served until I know why there’s a bloody blood bag in my cabinet!” He had to watch his temper - that had been an awful wording.

“Sorry, mate, I must’ve forgotten to throw the thing away.” Spike was shrugging “No harm done, right?”

“You picked the lock on my liquor cabinet,” Castle said. He had paid a lot for this lock, too.

“Well, I didn’t want to bother you for a key. You seemed tired and all.” The vampire flashed that evil smile of his.

He took a deep breath. “Kate - Xander, Spike. Xander, Spike - Detective Beckett.”

“Hi!” Xander said. He was, Castle saw, dressed for work in black cargo pants and a matching turtleneck.

“Charmed, luv,” Spike said, grinning. He was wearing his customary t-shirt and pants and looked almost respectable. “We’ve heard a lot about ya.”

Castle whipped his head around to stare at Vi.

His Slayer smiled widely, and very insincerely. “Only good things?” He started glaring at her, and she fled to the dinner table.

Fortunately, Beckett seemed to be more amused than angry. Until Spike grabbed the blood bag, sniffed it, and then tried to suck the remaining blood out of it. Then she looked simply disgusted.

“Is that safe to drink?” Xander on the other hand sounded fascinated.

“I mixed it with enough vodka, even if I were still alive I’d be safe.” Spike licked his lips.

Castle gasped, and reached down for his best vodka. The bottle was empty!

And Beckett seemed to think this was funny! She was chuckling!

“I need a better lock,” Castle mumbled.

“Yes, you do. This one is no challenge for Alexis any more,” Spike said.

Castle blinked. What did… “Did you teach my daughter to pick locks using my liquor cabinet?”

“Well, she’s not yet ready to pick the lock on your safe.”

“Alexis!”

*****

During dinner, Alexis was ignoring Castle’s glances as she had ignored his earlier words. It was really unfair - when Castle was putting his foot down and acting like a responsible parent, his daughter didn’t heed his advice. Even though it should be obvious to everyone that learning how to pick locks from Spike wasn’t a good idea!

“Most locks are not any better than the one on Rick’s liquor cabinet, A. If you can get the booze, you can go places too.”

Everyone but Faith, Castle amended his thought.

“I’ll show you how to fool electronics locks tomorrow. It’s really easy with the right tools!”

And Willow.

“If the lock’s too complicated, or if you’re in a hurry, thermite can open the door without much noise.”

Castle gaped at Xander. “You’re planning to teach her how to use explosives?”

“And make them too - they’re very useful,” the man answered, between two forkfuls of lasagna. “There are not many demons the right amount of boom won’t kill.”

“Am I the only one who is concerned that my daughter is learning how to become a burglar and a bomber?”

“Yes?” Buffy asked, momentarily stopping her attempt to secure a whole casserole for herself.

Castle didn’t like being the straight man. Not at all. Straight, as in the straight man for a joke, not the other meaning, of course.

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Dad! You learned the same in England. Mum told me all about it. And about the flame traps.” Alexis scowled at him. Then she smiled at Beckett. “If we all weren’t just hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” the detective said, with that smile on her lips she usually showed when she thought she had gotten one over Castle. Or had actually gotten one over him.

Castle frowned at her. She was supposed to be the straight man, or woman, here! And just as with his attempts to woo her, she wasn’t cooperating. Much, at least - he was certain that he was making progress in romancing her. She was hardly threatening to shoot him, anymore. He sighed. “I was quite a bit older than you, Alexis.”

“Which just means that at worst, I’ll be tried as a juvenile, instead of as an adult.” His daughter smiled far too widely at him.

Castle wasn’t giving up easily where his daughter’s future was concerned. “But even so, having a rap sheet will impact your career prosp…” He blinked, then palmed his face. “And of course, the Council wouldn’t care about that.”

Alexis smiled. His daughter was far too smart for her own good.

He decided to cut his losses, and change the topic. “So, how’s Agent Soandso trying to meddle in our case this evening?”

“Will’s checking into the Russian connection of the murders,” Beckett said.

“Oh? Like in the French Connection? Is he traveling to Moscow?” That happened in the sequel, but an author and demon hunter could hope. Agent Meddleson freezing in Moscow was a pleasant thought.

Willow chuckled, but other than her, no one seemed to get his joke. Well, Beckett did, but she was frowning at him. “You really need to watch more classic movies,” he said.

“We do!” Xander said. “Just last week we watched ‘Surf Nazis Must Die’.”

And everybody laughed. Castle didn’t pout. But he felt like it.

“Will we have to do something about this Will?” Buffy asked. “Is he one of those obsessed cops who don’t ever quit a case? Like the one in that movie with the other one?”

“The only obsession he has is our dear Detective here,” Castle said.

“Oh! You’re a honey trap?” Willow asked, then winced. “I mean… in a totally decent and non-sexist way, of course.”

“I’m not a ‘honey trap’,” Beckett said in a voice so cold, Castle shivered.

“He does seem to be a bit more interested in rekindling your relationship than would be professional,” Alexis pointed out.

Castle smiled at his daughter. He ignored the glare he received from Beckett. Of course he’d talk with his daughter about that!

Beckett frowned, then shook her head. “He won’t compromise a case for anyone.”

“That could be troublesome.” Buffy pursed her lips and grabbed the last casserole to help herself before Vi managed to take it.

“Is he cute?” Faith grinned. “Just asking. If he is, I could distract him.”

“You’re not his type.” Beckett was unsheathing her claws, Castle thought.

“He’s a bit old,” Vi said. “Not bad looking, but stuffy, in an American way.”

“Just kidding. Cops are not my type.” Faith smiled at Beckett. The temperature dropped a few more degrees.

Time for dessert, Castle thought. Hopefully, the tiramisu would help calm things down.

Unless they started arguing over it.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

They had argued over dessert - of course. Rick Castle felt like sighing. And Alexis had scolded him for not making enough tiramisu - as if it was his fault those women ate like starving hyenas. Not that he’d ever say that out loud - Xander and Buffy were a bit sensitive about those animals. He didn’t know why - not even Dawn would tell him the story behind that. At least Detective Beckett wasn’t exchanging barbs with Faith any more - though her barely-polite reaction to the dessert wars was not much of an improvement.

“Alright. Dinner’s over. Let’s talk business.” Buffy put down her fork. “We’ve got a demony cult to find, an evil ritual to stop, a possibly misguided but likely evil vigilante demon to stop, and a number of Russians to keep from soaking up demon-power and freeing the big bad.” She blinked. “And an apocalypse to stop, but that’s kind of a given.”

“It’s Russian Americans, I think,” Dawn cut in. “Most of them should be US citizens by now, due to having been born here.”

Buffy waved her hand. “Same thing. We need to find them before the evil demon cultists inject them with the seal’s power.” She blinked. “That sounds kind of kinky…” she turned to Willow. “They don’t do that kind of ritual, right?”

Willow looked confused. “What kind of ritual?”

“Like, you know, the non-bloody virgin sacrifice.”

“She means tantric rituals. Sex.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “For a girl with her love life, she’s astonishingly prude at times.”

“What do you mean, ‘my love life’?” Buffy glared at her sister.

“Technically, those virgin sacrifices are bloody as well, though not in the fatal sense,” Willow said, a bit too loud - she probably wanted to stop the brewing argument between the two Summers sisters, Castle thought.

“I don’t think we should get into those sorts of details. Unless those are the rituals we are talking about,” Xander said.

Spike scoffed. “If there’s no blood, then it’s not a sacrifice. It’s all in the blood.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Xander said. “But you’re kind of biased.”

“It’s actually not a tantric ritual,” Alexis said. “Those cannot be used to syphon power off a seal, unless that seal was human enough to have sex.”

Castle resolved to find out who had taught his little girl about Tantric rituals, and teach them the error of their ways. Unless, of course, it had been Willow. The last time he had complained to the Red Witch about her lessons, he had received an hour-long lecture about parenting, gender stereotyping, earth lore, Christian oppression of Wiccans, and a dozen other things he had forgotten.

“Well, the ritual they are using isn’t one of those,” Buffy said. “Rick mailed us the scans of the grimoire they used.”

“Why did you start to talk about it then?” Dawn said, glaring.

“I was just remarking about the wording.”

“You have a dirty mind.”

“Do not!”

Xander cleared his throat. “As much as I like a Summers catfight,” he said, his tone making it clear he didn’t like it at all, Castle thought, “we are kind of on a timer.”

“Right.” Buffy nodded. “We have Russian Americans to find and protect before the mad noose demon kills them to keep the other demons from freeing the big demon. There are way too many demons in this sentence.”

“And in this city,” Vi added.

“Just need to cull them, luv,” Spike said.

“That would be much easier if they were not hiding among innocent and not so innocent bystanders,” Rick’s Slayer complained.

“Focus, folks!” Xander said.

“Before we can protect them we need to find them. And since we can’t track them magically without their blood, we’ll have to look through the immigration archives,” Willow said. “Unfortunately, the electronic archives don’t cover all the files yet.”

“We can get you some blood from the hanged victims,” Castle offered. “Unless the blood needs to be fresh.” He didn’t fancy Willow doing her magic where an impressionable young innocent girl was around, but they had to save those people.”

“Fresh and freely given is best.”

“So, we find one, then persuade them to donate some blood.”

“I can do that!” Spike said. “I’m kind of an expert.”

“Not that kind of persuasion, Spike,” Dawn said, frowning.

“I can do the other kind too,” the vampire said, leering. That earned him glares from most of the table.

“Right. I vote for another plan than setting Spike on poor innocent people.” Xander raised his hand.

“Motion passed!” Buffy declared.

Castle glanced at Beckett. She had been remarkably silent so far… Ah, she was still dealing with seeing the Scoobies in action. He patted her hand. She glared at him - no gratitude there.

He sighed. “So… who breaks into the archives, and who talks to the local mob?”

“The mob? You want to talk to the mob?” Beckett said, sharply. She was back to normal then.

“They might know where the seal the demons smuggled in is,” Willow said.

“I think it’s best if you tackle the Russian angle, Detective,” Castle said. “You speak Russian, and the mob might not react well to a cop asking them.”

“You think a cop breaking into the city archives is a better idea?”

Castle wondered why the woman always managed to make his plans sound bad.

*****

“If this goes wrong I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’,” Castle said as Vi, at the wheel of his Shelby, took another turn a bit too close for comfort.

Beckett didn’t answer, to his surprise - she should be used to Vi’s driving style, by now. He looked over his shoulder, struggling slightly with his seatbelt, at the detective. She was looking out of the window with an unreadable expression. Or at least an expression he hadn’t seen before. “Detective?”

“What?” She whipped her head around and glared at him.

He was relieved, sort of - he knew that expression. “Are you having second thoughts? We can still drop you off at the archives.”

“No, Castle, I’m not having second thoughts.”

“I didn’t think so, actually.” When he saw her frown at him, he quickly added: “Not in a negative way!” Although she was, maybe, a bit too stubborn for her own good. “So… what’s eating you?”

“I was looking at the city. All those people, living their lives, ignorant of the danger they face.”

Rick nodded. He had had similar thoughts, at times.

Beckett went on: “And then I thought that the only thing standing between them and a violent death at the hand of some magic monster was a bunch of people stuck in their teenage years.”

Castle had had thoughts like that as well, but he’d be damned before he admitted that. The Scoobies had earned his respect, no matter their sometimes - often - infuriating antics. “They are not actually immature, you know,” he said. “It’s their way to cope with the pressure they are under.”

Vi nodded. “They’ve been risking their lives since forever.”

“Since high school, actually, but that must have felt forever,” Castle said. His attempt to add some levity died under the glares of both women. “Everyone’s a critic,” he mumbled under his breath, which at least made Vi grin. Louder, he said: “The city out there, the people, living in ignorance of the danger they are in? The Scoobies have seen that each day, since over a decade. They grew up on a Hellmouth, and fought demons and worse for years, with very little support from anyone.” He sighed. “They’ve suffered and sacrificed so much, yet hardly anyone will ever know. And they know that if they fail, just once, it could mean the end of a city, or the world.” Castle shook his head. “So, they joke and act up to unwind.” There were other reasons behind their behaviour, but there was no need to go into that, not now, not here. Some things you kept in the family. And Beckett wasn’t family. Not yet, he added.

“You’ve been doing this for a long time too, Castle.”

He forced himself to chuckle. “Oh, I wasn’t at the frontlines. I was a librarian, an author, and then quit to be a father. I can assure you, my dear detective, that I was my charming, witty self before I joined the Watchers Council.”

“According to your ex you two were hunting vampires whenever possible in London. And you certainly were on the frontlines in Sunnydale,” Vi added.

“And you seem to get into fights quite regularly, ever since I’ve known you,” Beckett added, staring at him.

He wanted to make a joke, but he couldn’t. Not about this, not about Vi’s risk. So he shrugged his shoulders. “Vi keeps me safe.”

Beckett stared at him for a few moments longer, then turned her head to the side and stared out of the window again. No one said anything for a while, but Castle caught Vi smiling at him.

He smiled back.

*****

“Here we are! The ‘Alfredo’, favourite restaurant of the man responsible for most of the clandestine business at the docks!” Castle announced when Vi drove past the restaurant’s front, looking for a parking spot.

“‘Clandestine business’? It’s crime, Castle. Organised crime,” Beckett spat out. “Don’t romanticise the mob.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that,” he said. “But they do romanticise themselves: ‘Alfredo’? Small Italian restaurant? Family business? How cliche can you get? If I used that in my books, the critics would crucify me!” He shook his head. “This mob boss has to have a peculiar sense of humour.”

“In my experience, few criminals have any sense of humour,” Beckett said as Vi parked the car.

“I think that’s because you usually meet them under very serious circumstances,” Castle said. He wouldn’t be that funny either if he was about to be arrested. Well, he’d try, of course! He blinked. “Just to make sure: You’re not thinking of arresting Marconi, right? We are here for information, not to start a fight.” Crucial information.

“We won’t start a fight, but we’ll finish it if anyone else starts!” Vi declared, checking her Glock.

When he saw that Beckett mirrored his Slayer’s action with her own gun, and nodded in agreement, Castle wondered if he should have picked another assignment. “Just let me do the talking,” he said.

He hoped the lack of opposition meant the two women agreed with that.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“You know, they will not let us talk to him while we’re armed,” Richard Castle said on the way to the restaurant’s entrance. Trying to get Vi to leave her weapons when they were meeting armed criminals was an exercise in futility, Castle knew that from experience. His Slayer was sometimes a bit too protective of him. On the other hand, he hadn’t been hurt nearly as much as Rupert had been in Sunnydale - although to be fair, New York was not built on a Hellmouth. “So, unless you have a plan to bypass the bodyguards of Marconi, I think you should stay back and let me meet the man.”

“As a matter of fact, I have a plan to make them let us pass.” Beckett’s smile was entirely too close to a Slayer’s, for Rick’s taste.

“You’re not going to shoot them, are you? I know it works in the movies, but I doubt you can get away with self-defense in reality,” Castle said.

Beckett didn’t answer, and then they too close to the bouncers, who had noticed them approaching. Castle saw hands sliding under jackets, and winced. Talking them past those would take a miracle.

“Detective Beckett, NYPD. I have a few questions for Marconi,” Beckett said, showing her badge.

A miracle, or a cop, Rick corrected himself. “This is so going into the book!” he whispered as the bouncers contacted someone through their headsets. He ignored Beckett’s glare and Vi’s chuckling. He could just see the scene, well he just saw it, but maybe he should make the Mob boss a vampire? No, better a demon who was not always evil. Brachen Demon, maybe.

“Mister Marconi will see you now,” the man said after a moment of listening to his radio.

“‘He will see us now’?” Castle shook his head while they entered. “That sounds more like a doctor’s appointment than a meeting with a mafia capo.” A hard-boiled detective meeting a mafia boss should sound much more… hm… mafia-like.

The restaurant’s interior looked as cliche as its name promised. Another thing Castle would have to change. Actually, he realised, the more changes, the better - it wouldn’t do to insult a mob boss by mistake.

Marconi didn’t look like a mob boss. He looked like an elderly accountant, with thinning grey hair, Castle thought. Definitely a Brachen stand-in.

“Good evening, detective. Please have a seat.” Marconi gestured at the chair across from him

“I’d prefer to stand. This shouldn’t take too long,” Beckett said.

The man frowned, and for a moment, Castle thought he saw behind the polite mask, into the eyes of a violent killer. Then Marconi smiled again, and nodded. “What brings one of our city’s finest to this humble restaurant?”

“Sometime ago, a rather unique thing was smuggled into the city,” Beckett said. “Castle, show him the sketch.”

Complaining that he had wanted to do the talking wouldn’t do much for his image as a ruggedly handsome and charming author who knew his way around the seedy underbelly of new York, so Rick pulled out the sketch Willow had made and slid it over the table towards the criminal. Rick was certain that Beckett was doing this to get back at him for defending the Scoobies. Maybe.

Marconi barely glanced at it. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m a legitimate businessman; I have no knowledge of any smuggling going on.”

“A legitimate business man with a rap sheet longer than your arm,” Beckett said, putting her hands on the table and leaning forward.

“Sins of a troubled youth, Detective,” Marconi said with narrowed eyes. “I paid for them with a lengthy stay in prison. But I learned my lesson, and have become a model citizen.”

Beckett frowned, then sneered. “You learned not to get caught. But legitimate businessmen don’t have half a dozen armed men standing guard when they eat dinner.”

Castle wished he could take notes.

“I am security-conscious, Miss.”

“Detective.”

“Detective.” Marconi’s tone was patronising. Insulting. He wanted to provoke Beckett, Castle realised. But why?

“This is not about smuggling, Marconi. This thing is a threat to the city. You don’t want to be tied to that kind of trouble, trust me.” Beckett said.

Castle nodded in support of the detective’s words. Which earned him a glare from said detective, instead of a smile.

Castle couldn’t tell if the implied terrorist charge impressed the man - Marconi simply smiled.

“I can assure you that I’m not party to any act of terrorism. Detective.” The small pause made a mockery of the title. Beckett glared at him, but the man remained unfazed. Nerves of steel, Castle had to admit.

“Do you really want to risk that?”

“There is no risk, Detective.”

Marconi was too confident, Castle thought. That kind of confidence, when faced with the charge of aiding and abetting terrorists, felt off. Why was the man so certain that he would not be sent to Guantanamo, or wherever the USA sent domestic terrorists?

Because he knew what had been smuggled, Castle thought. Marconi might have been duped, of course, but then he would not react like this. No, he knew that the thing was magical, Castle would bet his… well, something on it. And that meant a change of plans. He cleared his throat. “Well, it’s obvious the good man doesn’t know anything. We’re wasting our time here.”

To her credit, Beckett understood at once. She probably had come to the same conclusion as he. She nodded at the man, then turned around. “Let’s go.”

Castle kept looking around as they made their way towards the door. Half the room was watching them, and the other half was pretending that they couldn’t see them. Another bad sign. Two more and they could start a band.

“He just told the men to stop us,” Vi whispered.

“So much for polite, honourable meetings with the mob,” Castle said under his breath. “Hollywood lied to me!”

“The three outside just just were ordered to come inside and cut us off.” Vi’s Slayer senses were coming through again.

“Time for Plan B,” Castle said. “Break left once the door opens.”

“Break left?” Beckett asked in a strained whisper.

Before Castle could answer, the door started to open, and all hell broke loose.

Vi grabbed the closest table and threw it at the door, smashing it closed and breaking the hand of the first man who had stepped inside with his gun out. Castle ducked and started to run towards the kitchen entrance to their left. There would be a back door for deliveries, an obvious escape route. Marconi’s men would expect that.

Castle pushed past a shrieking couple and drew his own gun. Then he dropped to the ground. Just in time - shots were fired, and people started to scream in panic, before their screams were drowned out by a Slayer emptying her Glock 20 in three seconds while vaulting over tables and guests. Probably.

Castle wasn’t looking at her. He was aiming. With most of his goons down, Marconi would start to run… right now. Rick pulled the trigger twice, and the man went down, clutching his leg. Rick rolled around the next table, then scrambled over a screaming woman who was obviously regretting getting breast implants right now, and reached a corner.

A quick glance showed him that Vi and Beckett were shooting it out with the two remaining bouncers outside. Which didn’t take long. Marconi was still trying to escape despite his bleeding leg. A kick from Castle put an end to that. He shook his head at the mafioso. “That was a mistake. Working with demons, that is. As well as attacking the resident Slayer of New York.” The man paled, which clinched it - he knew about the supernatural. And he was working with demons.

Which would make cleaning up this mess simpler. Not easier, though. Executing humans should never be easy anyway. After Willow had made him talk, of course.

“Clear,” Vi said, replacing the magazine in her pistol with a fresh one as she stepped up to him. And when a Slayer said ‘clear’, it was. Usually. Slayer senses were just that good.

The last of the guests were just fleeing through the kitchen now, Castle saw.

Beckett was frowning, despite their victory. Castle wondered why - had Vi shown off too much?

“That’ll be hard to explain to my precinct,” the detective said.

“Oh. Not at all. Internal conflict. Some of Marconi’s own men tried to kill him. I had a craving for pasta, and we were here when the thing happened, and intervened to protect the innocents. Who, judging by how quickly they all fled, might not have been that innocent, actually.” Castle grinned.

“No one will believe that we just happened to pick Marconi’s restaurant for dinner.” Beckett glared at him.

“Of course not! I, being eccentric and rich, and fascinated by crime, decided to visit to do some research for my next book!” Rick’s grin widened. “My reputation does come in handy, right?”

The detective was less impressed by his plan than he had expected. Less grateful too.

*****

 


	14. Federal Attention

**New York, October 2009**

Detective Kate Beckett shook her head as she stared at the wrecked restaurant. “It won’t work. There are too many witnesses.” The guests had fled, and Vi hadn’t killed any of the men shooting at her. Unlike Beckett. Her bullets would be found in two dead men. They had been trying to kill her, but still… She shook her head. “We’ll play it straight. We came to talk to Marconi, on your initiative. Since you wanted to find out about some obscure thing for your research. And,” she added with a glance, “because you wanted to meet a capo. He had us attacked out of the blue.”

“That’s not straight. It’s more… slightly bent? Sort of,” Castle said.

He had that grin on his face again that made her want to both hit and… she wasn’t going there. Her colleagues already thought that she was sleeping with him. After this, they’d be even more convinced - they’d think she was following him around like some love-struck girl.

“But we’ll roll with it.” He smirked at her. “It’s a cunning plan, Detective.”

She rolled her eyes. He was joking, but she could lose her job over this. And even if all worked out, something always stuck to you in those incidents. Especially with Castle involved. People talked and speculated. She’d have a reputation.

“It’s clear.” Vi was back from a quick sweep of the street. “The rest of the thugs have fled.”

“Alright. Call it in. We’ll get the truth out of Marconi.”

“What?” She stared at Castle and his Slayer.

“We don’t have much time, and interrogating him when he’s under guard in a hospital will be too difficult.”

She hated feeling like she lost control of the situation. She was a cop, and this was a crime scene. She should be calling the shots here.

But it wasn’t her case, but the Council’s. Castle’s case, as weird as that still sounded. She pulled out her phone and called it in while Castle walked over to the whimpering mob boss.

*****

Beckett watched as two paramedics pushed the stretcher with the unconscious Marconi into an ambulance. Castle hadn’t tortured the man, which she had feared at first. It hadn’t been quite the ‘roughing up’ of a suspect some older cops called it either. But he hadn’t exactly been gentle with the wounded crook. And after the man had told them what he knew… “Was it really necessary to knock him unconscious at the end?” she asked in a low voice.

“Yes!” Vi said, too far away for a normal human to have overheard her, flashing her a predatory grin. The Slayer was very protective of her Watcher.

“It simplifies things,” Castle answered, next to her.

She looked at him. His expression was serious. Dead serious, she realised, with a sinking feeling in her gut. “You’re going to kill him?”

“Not personally. But those who willingly work with demons against humanity share the fate of their fell allies.”

He was quoting his books. Loremaster William had said that in ‘Shadows over Paris’. She clenched her teeth together. When she had joined the force, she had sworn that she wouldn't become one of those cops who bent the law while claiming to pursue justice. Or looked away when crimes were committed against criminals. But what was the alternative? Letting the mob join forces with demons?

She told herself that killing Marconi wasn’t a crime according to those treaties Castle had mentioned. She wasn’t a crooked cop. Not really. She was just a cop moonlighting as a demon hunter.

“Hey, Beckett!”

She turned her head and saw Esposito walk towards her, carefully stepping around the corpse at the end of the bar. Ryan was following him. “This looks like a gang war gone bad,” the former soldier said, shaking his head. “What happened?”

She knew what he really meant: What had she been doing in the middle of all of that? “Castle wanted to meet Marconi, to do some research for his next book. I didn’t want to let him and Vi go alone…” She sighed. “Apparently, the capo didn’t take well to Castle’s questions and set his goons on us. They didn’t expect us to defend ourselves.” They hadn’t expected Vi, to be honest. But Beckett wasn’t about to mention that.

“I thought that old spinster at the New York Times was my worst critic,” Castle cut in, “but apparently, I was wrong.” He sighed, almost theatrically. “Some people take Fantasy novels far too seriously.” He rubbed his chin. “Or they are just jealous.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Castle,” Kate said, “but it wasn’t your books, it was your personality he took offense to.”

He gasped at her. “No!”

“Yes.” She grinned at him. “Weren’t you aware that a number of people would love to shoot you once they know you? Marconi simply acted on this urge. I’m almost jealous, to be honest.”

Esposito and Ryan laughed with her while Castle pouted. He had told her to blame him, hadn’t he? She still owed him for claiming they were a couple as their cover.

“That’s a new record,” Ryan said. “Don’t your girlfriends usually take a few weeks until they want to shoot you? Not literally, I mean.”

Beckett saw a glint appear in Castle’s eyes, but before she could warn him to not even think about it - no matter what it was - he had wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side. “Oh, but she wanted to shoot me from the start, until she finally fell for my roguishly handsome charm!”

Beckett forced herself to smile while her own arm slid around his hip, until she could pinch his side without the two other detectives spotting it.

“That sounds like a rather special relationship,” Ryan said. Esposito nodded.

“You have no idea how special!” Castle said, beaming at them while she felt him squirm a little under her grip.

Judging from the glance the two men exchanged, neither Castle nor herself were that good at acting, Beckett thought. She wasn’t certain if she should be happy or disappointed. Castle was arrogant, infuriating, and acted less mature than his teenage daughter, but he was also, though she loathed to admit it, attractive and charming - and very brave. She blinked suddenly. Dear god, she was thinking like a character in a cheap romance novel!

*****

“You were getting right cozy there with each other. Did something happen that I, as your best friend, bodyguard, and Slayer, should know?” Vi asked while she took a turn at a speed that only a Slayer or professional race driver could safely handle.

It said a lot about how crazy Beckett’s life had become since she had met Castle that she didn’t really notice such things any more.

“Oh, my impressionable young Slayer,” Castle said, “I wish I could tell you all about our passionate love affair.”

“But since it’s just his imagination, he can’t,” Beckett interrupted him.

“But I can, actually! I’m a bestselling author! Turning my imagination into words is how I became rich.”

“Don’t tell me that the tough and sassy detective in your next book will have an affair with an author,” Beckett said. She still didn’t know if she should be proud that her favourite author wanted to use her as a model for his next main character - she was even less certain after meeting some of the people who had served as such models in the past - but to read a sex scene involving her expy, and what would be Castle’s self-insert…

“Of course not!” Castle said. She was relieved - and a tiny, very tiny, bit disappointed - until he continued: “He’ll be a journalist instead, I think.”

“And what about the beautiful and sexy Vampire Hunter who will end up saving them both?” Vi asked.

“I don’t think that will go further than some unconscious flirting between the two women,” Castle said. “At least in the first book.”

“What?” Beckett and Vi said in unison.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” the author quickly said, holding his hands up.

“You don’t sound like you’re kidding,” Vi said. “And you won’t look me into the eyes!”

“I don’t want to look into your eyes because you’re driving! And at a rather high speed, if I might add!” Castle’s English accent was peeking through - he must be stressed, Beckett thought.

“Don’t try to change the subject!” Vi said, taking another turn without more than glancing at the road once. “This is important!”

“Priorities, Vi! We have a city to save, remember?” Castle said.

The redhead huffed, then glanced over her shoulder at Kate. “Aren’t you going to tell him that a character based on you would never fall for a woman?”

Kate couldn’t resist. “Why would I do that? Didn’t you experiment in college?” she asked, acting as innocently as possible.

When Vi gasped and Castle whipped his head around to stare at her so quickly, she could almost hear his vertebrae crack in protest, the detective laughed.

When Castle loudly declared: “That’s so going into the book!”, she stopped laughing. She should have expected that. She knew Castle well by now. But maybe not yet well enough.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“So… the evil cultists had a deal with the evil godfather. That sounds like a fairy tale.” Richard Castle saw Buffy purse her lips while she pondered this. “Fairies are of the bad. Well, the fairy tale-y ones, not the other kind. Which is a derogatory word we shouldn’t use anyway.” The Slayer was walking back and forth in front of his couch while she talked.

“That’s not exactly the point, Buffy.” Xander shook his head. “In any case, we managed to get the immigration records. But tracking the Russians - the Russian-Americans - down will take some time.”

“It would be faster if they had more electronic records,” Willow cut in, looking up from her laptop. Where, Castle noted, his daughter, who was nearing her bedtime, was paying rapt attention to what was certainly a rather illegal hacking attempt. “Bunch of luddites!” the witch added.

“Well, we can start to track them the old-fashioned way,” Xander said. “Like private eyes! I need a fedora. And a trench coat.”

“Daddy’s already a consultant for the police. He can be Sherlock Holmes,” Alexis said.

“He’ll need a deerstalker then. And more tweed,” Xander said.

“Leaving aside the fact that the original novels never mentioned a deerstalker, I’m not going to wear tweed.” Castle laid the law down. He had a reputation to maintain.

“Do the malls in New York even sell deerstalkers? Or did the city ban them to avoid traumatising the fashion-conscious population?” Buffy asked.

“I’m not going to wear a deerstalker,” Castle said.

“Beckett should be wearing the deerstalker. Not only would it be a great disguise, but she’s already a detective,” Vi said.

Castle glanced at Beckett, who hadn’t said much for the entire meeting so far.

The detective shook her head. “Does anyone care about the fact that the local mob is involved with this demon cult? That we had a shootout with the mafia? That you are apparently going to kill the capo while he is in police custody?”

“Technically, he’s in a hospital under guard. Although that counts as police custody, I guess,” Willow said.

Beckett glared at the women - apparently she had not been impressed by his tales about the Red Witch. “How can you talk about clothes with this hanging over our heads?”

“Fashion’s important!” Buffy said, with a wide smile.

“Murder’s a bit more important than fashion.” Beckett clenched her teeth and she had that slight twitch near her eyebrow that Castle knew meant she was really angry.

“It’s not murder. It’s an execution,” Xander said.

“Without a trial.”

The young man shrugged. “We know he’s guilty. If we let him go he’ll likely contact more demons. Those who work with them usually do. And I think New York would fare better without a demonic mafia.” He scoffed. “Imagine trying to arrest mafia goons with magical enhancements. Or the ability to curse their enemies. Not to mention that he did help demons trying to free a big bad, which is enough to merit the death penalty by itself.”

“It’s not as if we can lock him up,” Castle added. “We’re hard-pressed to protect the world without having to guard a prison.”

“I could turn him into a rat, and we could keep him in a cage, but that way lies badness.” Willow grimaced.

Beckett stared at the witch. “You can turn people into rats?”

“Yes.” The redhead nodded. “It’s dangerous, though. An acquaintance of us turned herself into a rat to escape a witch burning. She was stuck as a rat for years, though, since rats can’t cast spells.”

“That witch also turned me into a rat when we were both under the influence of a love spell.” Buffy scowled. “It wasn’t fun, and when I was turned back I had lost all my clothes!”

“According to what I heard you had already stripped nude in an attempt to seduce Xander before you were turned into a rat,” Dawn said, grinning.

“Where did you hear that? Spike? Xander?” Buffy was glaring around.

“I wasn’t involved, but I know the story,” the vampire said, grinning.

“We all swore never to talk about that day again!” Xander said. “Have you forgotten that Anya starts to talk about her past whenever it is brought up?”

“What does that mean?” Beckett asked. The detective looked slightly shocked - apparently, she hadn’t grown as used to the supernatural as Castle had thought. Or maybe he had underestimated the effect close proximity to the Scoobies had on normal people.

“It’s a long story,” Buffy said.

“Anya worked as the vengeance demon for scorned women and punished men in very cruel and creative ways,” Dawn said.

“Apparently not that long,” Buffy said. “But we have a mission to accomplish here.”

“And we can’t just declare it over before it’s over,” Xander added. “Well, we could, but it would be a bad idea. And we don’t have an aircraft carrier.”

Castle saw Beckett blink, and decided to move things back on track before the detective suffered an overdose of Scooby trivia. Their war stories made his own sound boring. “So… we need to track Russian immigrants and the dockworkers who helped the demons smuggle the seal in. Who is on which task?”

“Dawn and the detective both speak Russian. That should help gaining their trust,” Xander said.

“They fled Russia. I don’t think they’re easily trusting strangers speaking Russian.” Dawn shook her head. “Especially if you or Miss Overprotective keep glaring at them.”

“I don’t glare!” Buffy said.

“Sure you do! You scared away half my dates!” Dawn retorted.

“Half your dates?” Buffy gaped. “That’s not… you dated people I didn’t met first?”

“Of course! All who met you were too scared to date me!”

“They wouldn’t have been scared if they could be trusted!”

“As if you are a good judge of dating material, given your love life!” Dawn huffed.

“Oy!” Spike said.

“Present company excluded,” Dawn added with a smile.

“Present company included!” Xander said.

“Oy!”

Castle was about to attempt to get the planning meeting back on track when the doorbell rang. At once, the spat between the Summers sisters was over.

“Do you expect anyone?” Buffy asked, halfway to the door already, Mr. Pointy in her hand.

“No, I don’t,” Castle said, grabbing his jacket to cover up his gun holster, if needed.

Vi was at the door, peering through the peephole, while the rest took up positions.

“It’s the Special Agent,” she said. “And he looks mad.”

Castle muttered a curse under his breath. He should have expected this.

*****

“Agent Sorelosoron!” Castle greeted the man with the fakest smile he could manage this side of being polite.

The man glared at him. “Is Kate here?”

Rick was tempted to ask if the man had a warrant, but that would be too much for the obviously tense agent. Probably. Weren’t Feds supposed to be more calm? Then again, if he had heard about Beckett being in a shootout, he wouldn't be calm either.

“Yes,” Beckett said behind him.

The agent took in a sharp breath, then tried to push past Castle. For a moment, Rick wanted to stop him. Grab him and tell him to get lost. He was invading a private residence, wasn’t he? But Kate would hate that. And he was a better man than that, too. So he stepped to the side, though he couldn’t help adding: “I guess manners are not taught at the FBI academy.”

“Kate! I just heard that you were in a shootout with Antonio Marconi’s men!”

“You just heard that?” Castle whistled. “Wow, I knew the cooperation between the Feds and the local cops was bad, but that bad?” Both cops glared at him, so he held his hand up. “I’m just making an observation.”

“An observation we can do without right now,” Agent Can’t-take-it-son said. “What happened? Why were you in his restaurant?”

“That was his restaurant? That explains the biggest collection of Italian cliches I’ve ever seen!” Castle shook his head.

“Castle!” Beckett hissed at him.

“Sorry. I’ll be quiet now and leave our dear Special Agent to have a special moment.” He mimed zipping his lips shut.

“Five bucks say he won’t stay silent longer than five minutes!” Vi loudly commented, which caused the Scoobies to chuckle. Even Alexis giggled!

“And who are those people?” The agent gestured at the assembled Scoobies. They had stashed and holstered their weapons, but they were still spread out just right to cover the door, something the agent might just have realised, Castle thought.

“Friends of mine from England,” Castle said.

“I knew it!” Vi crowed. “Pay up!”

“I didn’t bet, duh,” Xander said. “That was the mother of all sucker’s bets!”

“He’s weaseling out of another bet?” Dawn shook her head. “I thought he had changed his slippery ways.”

“I never accepted that bet either!” Xander said.

“And he even won that bet!” Dawn pouted. “He’s really bad at this.”

“You wanted to lose that bet, duh!” Xander was glaring at the girl now.

“So?” Dawn wrinkled her nose. “You’re welching on bets, that’s a fact!”

“I am not welching on bets!”

“Dawn! Xander! Stop that!” Buffy snapped, glaring at both. Then she turned to the agent, and smiled so sweetly, Castle could almost fele his teeth starting to rot. “Please excuse my sister and my friend. They’ll behave now, so you can continue with… whatever you were doing, I guess.”

“What?” The agent was staring at the blonde Slayer.

Castle snorted, which earned him another glare from Beckett - another reason to keep Agent Jealouson away from her; she was usually far more receptive to funny quips, or so Castle thought.

“They are guests of Castle, Will,” Beckett said.

The agent was visibly struggling to get his mind back in gear. Rick wasn’t surprised - rigid minds usually didn’t do well when faced with such situations. Beckett had to have realised that as well, since she was showing far more patience with the agent than she usually had with Castle.

“But… whatever. Kate! What happened?”

“Castle wanted to meet a mob boss, to do some research for his next book. So we went and visited Marconi’s favourite restaurant,” Beckett explained. “The man did meet with him, but somehow must have taken offense at his questions, since he ordered his men to attack us.”

“Well, as far as attacks go, that was barely above an attempt. For hardened criminals, they really were not much to talk about,” Vi said. “We shot, what, eight of them?”

“Maybe they are not much to talk about because they misunderstood the Omerta?” Castle said. When no one laughed and Alexis rolled her eyes at him, he pouted. That hadn’t been a bad joke. Not one of his best, but still - it wasn’t as if their own quips were always award-worthy!

Suddenly, Beckett’s very ex-boyfriend lunged for him. “Castle! What did you do?”

Rick could have taken him, of course - he had fought vampires and other demons who were far stronger than a puny Special Agent in a cheap suit - but Vi had the man down on the ground and in a very painful armlock - Castle knew that from experience - before anyone else could do anything.

While Beckett was gaping - hopefully shocked at the potential for unprovoked violence her ex-boyfriend had been displaying - Castle was thinking of how to work that in his next book, and Buffy was criticising his Slayer’s form, Spike shook his head and said: “Oy… I want it on record that I had nothing to do with this assault on a cop!”

Trust the damn vampire to totally misrepresent the situation!

*****

**New York, October 2009**

While Richard Castle was glaring at Spike, who was looking as if he didn’t know exactly what he had done, the special agent in question was making himself heard.

“Let me up! Attacking a special agent of the FBI is a crime!”

“Yeah? So is attacking an author!” Vi snapped. Rick’s Slayer was straddling the man’s back, her grip on his arm forcing his face into the floor.

“Let him up, Vi,” Castle said. “I don’t think he’ll try to attack me again.” Rick doubted that the man’s fragile ego would be able to handle that.

Almost growling, the redhead released the agent and stood up.

Beckett’s very ex-boyfriend was enraged, his cheap suit rumpled - not torn though, Castle noted. He was rubbing his arm, but his attention was on the author. “What did you do to cause a shootout with a notorious criminal?”

Castle shot a glance at Beckett. When he had agreed to her plan, he hadn’t agreed to this. She knew he  couldn’t exactly explain the real reason for the mob’s attack to the special agent. She wasn’t even looking at him, but glaring at her ex-boyfriend. Which was, Castle had to admit, probably a good thing. He was the ruggedly handsome, rich and brave demon hunter, and Agent Alsoson was the former lover who couldn’t control his temper and acted all possessive. Or protective. Castle shrugged. “I believe - and that’s just an assumption, mind you - that the not so good mob boss misinterpreted a planned plot - more like a subplot, really - for my next book. He must have thought I was talking about a criminal operation of his.”

“What?”

Castle ignored the brief but incredulous glance from Beckett at him and shrugged at his wanna-be rival. “A freak coincidence, I think. How was I to know that he actually was involved with demon cultists?”

And now the entire room was glaring at him from behind Soso’s back. Didn’t they realise that the best way to hide the truth was to state it in a way so no one would believe it?

At least the agent was playing his intended role. “Stop with your games, Castle! An experienced mafia leader does not suddenly attack someone over a dime novel plot! Tell me the truth!”

“Dime novel plot?” Castle was incensed. “I’ll have you know that my bestselling books are priced far higher than that!”

“Yes!” At least Dawn valiantly came to his defense. “He writes great books!”

“Leave the literary merit of Castle’s books out of this, Will,” Beckett cut in. Castle grinned - he was her favourite author, after all. Insulting his work was insulting her taste. “As unbelievable as it sounds, Castle really was discussing a demon plot with Marconi when the man lost it.”

“Marconi probably had an overly active imagination, coupled with the paranoia a career criminal like him would develop over the years. So, when he thought he was exposed, he panicked.” Xander shrugged. “Foiled by Fantasy.”

Rick had to admit that was a nice one-liner. He should be able to use that in his book.

“You told them about this but you didn’t inform me?” The former boyfriend was working on cementing his status, Castle noted. Women didn’t like that sort of comment.

Beckett was no exception. “I wasn’t aware I had to inform you about everything that’s going on in my life as soon as it happens, Will. You’re not part of my life any more, remember?” Oh, yes - scorned woman there, Castle thought.

“A shootout you could have been killed in while working on my case is something I should know about!” the good agent snapped. “And you’re talking about this with civilians?”

“I was talking with them about it, as it happened,” Castle said.

“And there was no real danger!” Vi was glaring at the agent. “I easily took care of those thugs.”

“I’m certain he didn’t intend to slight your skill as a bodyguard, Vi,” Castle said. He knew that his Slayer was a bit sensitive when her skills were put in doubt, especially in the presence of Buffy and Faith.

“He better not or I demonstrate takedown techniques on him again!” The redhead huffed.

“If you do, try to grab his wrist for additional leverage,” Buffy said, smiling brightly. “Other than that I think your form was very good!”

While Vi beamed and the special agent gaped at the blonde, Castle saw that Beckett was rolling her eyes. She was probably not happy that Vi had insinuated that the detective had needed her protection as well.

“This…” The agent was shaking his head. “This is madness!”

“This is Sparta!” Xander quickly said. That earned him half a dozen glares.

“No, this is not Sparta! We’re not about to drop the good agent down a well.” Buffy said. “We don’t even have a well here.”

“The window would do. Pigs don’t fly,” Faith said.

“I could arrest you all for obstruction of justice and assault!”

“My lawyer is still ready to bury you, Agent!” Castle said.

“Not literally, of course!” Buffy said. “We don’t hire that kind of lawyer.”

“Being buried is not really a bad thing, under the right circumstances,” Spike said. “It’s an experience.”

The agent was close to losing it, Castle realised. He was far too tense and glaring around. The Slayers had noticed already, and had moved closer, just in case. And while the good agent’s ego could probably use another face-to-floor meeting, Castle doubted Beckett would appreciate it. And the agent could make some trouble for them - not much, and nothing they couldn’t deal with, but they had an apocalypse to stop. He held up his hands. “Everybody calm down, please. Let us deal with this as rational adults.”

Castle frowned at the looks directed at him right then.

*****

“So, you see, Agent Soandson, I was not asking about anything related to your serial killer, but a hypothetical smuggling of a cursed artifact,” Castle finished explaining a bit later. “We haven’t told our friends anything they didn’t already knew from the newspapers, either. We’ve been perfectly good.” He ignored Vi’s snorting and smiled at the other man.

“For a certain definition of good,” Buffy said. Castle ignored that as well.

Sadly, the special agent didn’t seem to appreciate his explanation. He was calmer now, though. Or colder. A kind of cold fury. Castle shook his head - he couldn’t use that in his next book. It wouldn’t fit the bumbling federal agent character he was writing. Impotent fury was more like it.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

Castle was certain the man didn’t want an honest answer.

The Fed stared at him. “You are far too calm to have been in a shootout. As is the girl there.” The man hadn’t really looked at Vi since she had introduced him to the flat’s floor, Castle realised. Wounded ego, much? “Kate’s acting weird about it as well. And everyone here seems to treat a shooting in a restaurant that left several people dead and even more wounded as a joke!”

Castle glanced to Beckett. That sounded more than a bit familiar. She was tense too, he noticed. He should have expected this, Rick thought - Beckett wouldn’t have been involved with Agent Meddlesome if he actually was stupid.

“Are you on drugs?”

Castle blinked. He hadn’t expected that. Before he could answer the man’s question, though, Buffy piped up, all Californian Valley girl. “Does coffee count as a drug? I mean, I read once that it should count, since we grow addicted to caffeine, and if I don’t get my morning cup I’m all grumpy and growly - although even then I’m not as frazzled as Dawn claims.” The blonde Slayer ignored her sisters ‘I’ve got video evidence!’ and continued: “But if it was a drug, wouldn’t it be at least restricted or prohibited? Although, Willow said prohibition doesn’t work and only helps the drug dealers.”

The Special Agent was looking like he wanted to be on drugs. Castle had to suppress a chuckle - Buffy had the airhead babbling down to an artform. An artform not everyone appreciated, he amended after a glance at Beckett. He sighed. “No, we’re not on drugs. We’re just eccentric, and prefer to joke to deal with trauma.” He grinned. “As you may have noticed, Vi is a very skilled bodyguard. Buffy, Faith and Xander trained her.”

“So, what are you? Some private military contractors just visiting?” The good agent was still suspicious, of course.

“We’re not exactly military,” Xander said. Buffy snorted. “We’re private security, based in Britain.”

“I’ve made the acquaintance of their boss when I was studying in London and working part-time in a library.” Castle smiled. “I met my first wife there as well.”

“And you expect me to believe that it’s just a coincidence that you’re all here?” The Fed scoffed. “I should have you all deported!”

“Good luck with that,” Buffy snorted. “We’ve got diplomatic impunity.”

Castle hoped the agent would think that was a joke.

*****

 


	15. The Hunt

**New York, October 2009**

“I think that went well,” Richard Castle said when the not so good special agent had finally left his apartment again.

“If that’s your definition of ‘well’ I don’t want to know what you’d consider a ‘bad’ outcome,” Beckett said, glaring at him as if anything was his fault, instead of the fault of Agent Stalkinson.

“Someone hurt or killed,” Buffy said.

“What?” Beckett had that peculiar expression again, where she left her mouth halfway open. Adorable, Castle thought, although he’d never say it out loud.

“The usual definition of a bad outcome,” the blonde Slayer clarified.

“Well, Buffy, someone getting hurt doesn’t have to be a bad outcome, if it was needed to save others,” Xander cut in.

“I’m pretty sure that the dear agent was hurt,” Dawn added.

“He doesn’t count,” Buffy said. “He asked for this when he attacked Rick. We can’t let people attack our Watchers like that. They’re a bit too breakable. And if we lose one, we might get an über-tweedy replacement who’ll need a lot of sense knocked into him, which might break him as well, and… where was I going with this?”

“To Stupid Town. Population: One blonde.” Dawn said, shaking her head.

When that received a few chuckles, Buffy pouted. “What’s this, pick on Buffy day?”

“It’s always pick on Buffy day,” Dawn said, grinning. “Her ego would grow too large for our ecosystem if it wasn’t regularly cut down to size.”

“Can you be serious, for once?” Beckett snapped. The detective wasn’t looking amused at all. “I know Will. As soon as he has the opportunity, he’ll investigate. And he’ll not give up until he’s found the truth.”

“The truth? He can’t handle the truth,” Xander said. “I’d wager he’ll go full Sunnydale.”

“What?”

“That’s Scooby-speak for ‘he’ll ignore the supernatural and forget about it’,” Castle explained to Beckett. “A lot of people react like that when confronted with magic and demons. They rationalise it away.”

“Sometimes they try to burn you at the stake instead, though,” Buffy said, frowning.

“They were under the influence of a demon, Buffy,” Willow said. “In Sunnydale, even some people who were bitten by a vampire and survived repressed the experience and rationalised it - or simply ignored it. Although according to a theory that was an effect of the Hellmouth, to keep the humans from fleeing the place once they realised how many people died there.”

“You have to feed all those demons attracted to a Hellmouth. And catering or takeout would get far too expensive,” Xander said, nodding sagely.

“Will isn’t like that.” Beckett crossed her arms, her expression daring anyone to contradict her.

Castle was tempted to, but decided against it. The detective looked a bit too tense for a rational discussion. He’d offer a massage to help with that, but she’d probably take it the wrong way. “We’ll see. Now, we have to plan our next step.”

*****

“You’re not drinking that in my car!” Castle glared at the vampire sitting next to him, who had just pulled out a blood bag from his coat. “If you get blood over the seats… is that a thermal bag?”

“Of course it is. I only drink cold blood with cereal!” Spike said. “And don’t fret, mate. I haven’t spilled blood in decades. Well, not like that, you know.”

“We are all aware of how much blood you have spilled, Spike,” Buffy, who had unfairly and illegally called dibs on Castle’s usual seat, said, looking over her shoulder at them.

“That is beside the point. I don’t want you to open a bag of blood in my car. Not while Vi is driving!”

“Are you criticising my driving?” the redhead asked, glaring at him.

“No, I’m not. Eyes front!” Castle retorted, as Vi took the next turn with barely a glance. “Show off,” he mumbled, earning him a smirk.

“Can we stop for a drink then? Interrogating dockworkers is thirsty work,” Spike said.

“Work? You glared at them and they wet their pants!” Buffy scoffed. “That’s not work!”

“I had to shake down the last one!” Spike protested.

“You had fun doing that.”

“No one said work can’t be fun, Slayer.”

“If it’s fun it’s not work!” Buffy said, pouting.

“If you’re getting paid for it, it’s work.”

“Well, you’re not getting paid!” Buffy huffed.

“I am getting paid by the Council. A regular salary, even.”

Buffy’s pout deepened. “We’re not stopping anyway - we’re on the clock! We’ve got an apocalypse to stop! You can drink your blood at Rick’s flat.”

“We stopped so you could get a hot dog!”

“That’s different!”

“How?”

“It is!”

“You’re just jealous that you can’t terrify people without beating them up.”

“I so can terrify people!” Buffy turned to Castle. “I can, right?”

Fortunately, Castle hadn’t to answer that - he was certain that there was no right answer - since Spike snorted. “He doesn’t count, he knows what you can do, Slayer.” And the two were bickering again.

Castle exchanged a glance with Vi. For a change, the Watcher and his Slayer seemed to be in complete agreement. She sped up. The sooner they were back home, the better. At least they had knew which van the demons had used to move the seal - one of the dockworkers had been quite observant, and noticed that the van had been a rental. Even if it was stolen, they should be able to track it. Unless the demons had been smarter than the average criminal.

*****

By the time they arrived at Castle’s apartment, he knew more about the history between Buffy and Spike, and Spike’s personal unlife, than he had ever wanted to know. And Buffy had complained about middle-aged Loremasters seducing young Vampire Hunters? Though he wasn’t quite certain who had seduced whom, in that case. And if there still was a relationship. Or a ‘co-workers with benefits’ arrangement. He could ask Rupert, he thought. Or sound out Vi - his Slayer probably knew more about that sort of gossip than Castle. Heck, Alexis probably knew more about Council gossip than Rick. And wasn’t that a terrifying thought!

“We have returned, bearing important information!” he announced when he entered his apartment. The rest of the group was gathered in his living room, spread out over several of his couches and seats. Willow was still glued to her laptop, which probably had more processing power than most supercomputers. Dawn was barely visible behind a wall of book stacks. Most of them from his library. Faith was munching on the cashew nuts Castle had had imported, and Xander was showing Alexis how to make homemade explosives.

He blinked. “Alexis!”

His daughter smiled innocently at him. “Dad?”

“What are you doing?”

“Learning how to make a bomb,” his daughter told him.

“I can see that!”

“Why do you ask then?” Alexis was looking at him with that disapproving expression he was so familiar with. Like his mother’s, just more effective. “You knew Xander was going to teach me!”

“Well, he’s old. I heard the mind is the first thing to go when you’re growing old,” Buffy said with a smile.

He glared at her, then turned back to Alexis. He hadn’t forgotten that, of course, but he had hoped Alexis would have forgotten. “Why are you learning how to make a bomb?” If the special agent had seen that...

“So I can make one when we need one, of course,” she said. “I’d rather know what I’m doing when I’m cooking up explosives in our kitchen.”

Castle’s first impulse was to tell her to go to her room, and then look for good boarding schools. His second impulse was to tell Xander to stop corrupting his little angel. He wasn’t quite as stupid to do either, of course - contrary to his mother’s frequently and loudly voiced opinion. He said: “Does your mother know what you’re doing?” Mary was a very traditional Watcher. She had never approved of Rick’s flamethrower, so she should go ballistic when she heard about Alexis learning how to make bombs.

“She knows I’m getting lessons and training from experienced Watchers.” Alexis smiled widely. In other words, Castle’s little angel had managed to pull one over his ex-wife. Rick didn’t know if he should be proud or appalled. He shook his head with a wry grin and went to get himself some coffee.

“See, Buffy, Rick’s got his priorities straight: No bitching about bedtimes when the world is at risk!” Dawn said.

“That’s different!” the blonde Slayer said.

“How so?”

“It just is!”

“That’s no argument!”

“Right. We’re not having an argument about this because I’m right!” Buffy turned away from her sister and joined Castle for coffee.

“So, what did you find out?” Xander asked.

“We found out that the demons transported the seal in a rental van. Probably rented from Avis using a fake address,” Castle said while his cup was slowly filling with black Italian coffee. “But since it’s a new model it should have a locator beacon built in which can be tracked.” Technology was wonderful for hunting demons, Castle thought. He would have to be careful when turning this into a novel, though, to avoid giving the bad guys and demons pointers.

“On it!” Willow said, her finger flying over her laptop’s keyboard. “Alexis, do you want to see how to hack into a car rental company?”

“Yes!” Alexis hurried over to the witch.

Castle sighed. Other fathers had to deal with their little girls growing up and coming home with boys. He had to deal with his little girl growing up and learning how to commit several felonies in order to hunt demons.

His mother said it was karma.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Do I want to know what you and your colleagues were up to after I left last night, or should I simply ask for the results?” Beckett said after sliding on the backseat of Castle’s - and it was his, no matter what Vi thought - Shelby.

“You wound me, Detective!” Richard Castle said. When she narrowed her eyes at him, he added: “But maybe we shouldn’t bother you with the details of our information gathering. Rather boring, really.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve been tracking the van the demons used, and we have mapped its route, and the likely locations they might have transported the seal to.”

“You’ve been busy then.”

Was that appreciation in the woman’s voice? Yes, it was! Castle smiled. “We’ve done our legwork.”

“Yep. Like detectives.” Vi grinned.

“Private eyes,” Rick hastened to add, then glared at Vi. His Slayer just smirked.

Beckett rolled her eyes. “But you haven’t found the place yet.”

Castle pouted. She could have at least asked, instead of assuming that they hadn’t had any success yet. “No, we haven’t”, he admitted. “There are a lot of locations in New York that would suit such a ritual.”

“We’ve checked the most likely so far, but without any luck,” Vi said. “Willow’s spreadsheet was a bust.”

“Those demons might be a bit smarter than I thought.” Rick sighed. “It’s really annoying when cultist intent on causing an apocalypse are no idiots.” He rubbed his chin. “Although in this case, I wonder if they deliberately avoided the most obvious locations, or if they simply didn’t know them, being foreigners.”

“If they act dumber than they are, then that’s cheating according to Buffy” Vi nodded.

Beckett stared at them. “I don’t know if I should be glad or worried that you’re apparently joking about an upcoming apocalypse we have to stop.”

“Well, I was always fond of dark humour, as should be evident in my writing, but...” Rick started to say. Then he saw her expression, and quickly turned his head towards the Slayer who was sitting behind the wheel. “Vi, hit it!”

*****

“I must admit that as a bestselling author, I do feel vexed that those demons visited so many abandoned warehouses and former industrial areas. As lairs, those are utter cliches.” Castle was shaking his head. That was the fifth such location they were visiting. So far they hadn’t found the demons they were looking for, but had dealt with one vampire nest and a scared a group of teens doing drugs.

“My heart is bleeding for you, Castle,” Beckett said. “Such a burden you have to bear.”

“I know.” Castle sighed loudly. “It’s so vexing when the real world follows literary tropes instead of being original.”

“It’s not actually a literary trope, but more of a televisonary one,” his Slayer said.

“That’s not a word, Vi,” Castle said.

“Sure is! I just used it! I couldn’t have done that if it wasn’t a word.”

“Buffy is a really bad influence on you.” Castle was shaking his head.

“I’ll tell her you said that.” Vi stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’ll deny it and bribe her with new shoes.” He grinned.

“That’s unfair.”

“That’s smart, young grasshopper.”

“Grasshopper?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Must be a misshapen, ugly, unwanted one. ‘Grasshopper’... what’s next, you calling the detective ‘bug’?” Vi snorted.

“Why would I call her that?” Castle still was surprised by how Vi’s mind worked at times.

“She’s bugging us all the time!”

“I’d rather say that Castle is bugging me,” Beckett cut in.

Rick pouted, but before he could rectify this accusation, they arrived at their next stop.

“Yet another abandoned warehouse. This one even comes with a partially caved-in roof!” Rick muttered as he grabbed his shotgun from under the seat.

“No flamethrower this time?” Beckett asked, checking her own shotgun. Actually, Castle’s, it was just on loan, but he wasn’t certain that it would be a good idea to mention this when she was holding it.

He shook his head. “If there are too many, then we might have to run quite quickly, and the Ack Pack would slow me down too much.”

“Meaning, he couldn’t outrun you, Miss High Heels,” Vi added.

“I wouldn’t outrun her, Vi. I would bravely cover our retreat,” Rick said.

“You’d bravely protest while I throw you over my shoulder and carry you out while the Detective does her duty to serve and protect and distracts the enemy,” Vi said.

“How many demons would be too many for you?” Beckett looked straight at Vi. “Two or three?”

Vi gasped, then grinned. “That was almost a decent zinger - for a newbie. Keep it up and you can rival Alexis.”

Beckett was about to say something, but Vi suddenly froze and held up her hand. Castle saw the Slayer’s nostrils flare, and her expression showing eagerness.

“Demons.”

*****

They were out of sight of the warehouse - even the average demon apart from a Hellmouth was not quite as dumb as to not pay attention when a car drove up to their lair - but they were apparently close enough for Vi to smell them.

“Do you recognise the scent?” he asked.

Vi shook her head. “No. It’s more a general stench.”

“None of the particularly smelly ones?” Castle asked.

“No.”

“Do you actually identify demons by their scent?”?” Beckett asked, staring at Vi.

“Sometimes,” the redhead answered.

“She’s like a bloodhOW!” Castle winced, rubbing his arm. “I need that arm for fighting!”

“Then don’t risk it by calling me a bitch.” Vi huffed. Apparently, she was really tired of that particular joke.

“That’s not what I meant!” Castle protested.

“You didn’t mention that in the Vampire Hunter books,” the detective said.

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to clue the enemy in.” Castle grinned. “Many of the older vampires grew up in a time without TV, and are therefore quite fond of reading.”

“So, like your age?” Vi said.

That hit a bit close to home. Castle frowned at her. “As a former librarian and current bestselling author, I would be fond of books even if I were half my age.”

“Can we now deal with the demons, instead of hashing out Castle’s midlife crisis?” Beckett was tapping her shotgun with her fingers.

Castle would have made a joke about the life expectancy of a Watcher in the field being half his age, but that would have touched upon the Slayers’ life expectancy, and some things you didn’t touch if you were not Slayer yourself. So he said: “Making deals with demons is generally ill-advised.” When the woman frowned, he added: “But I do think we should, as the teenagers say, ‘get a move on’.”

“We don’t say that anymore, gramps,” Vi said.

“You’re not a teenager anymore either.”

“We didn’t say that when I was a teenager.” The Slayer wasn’t relenting.

“Let’s just go and kill some demons,” Castle said.

Before Becket lost her patience. It was the detective’s first apocalypse, so she was understandably a bit stressed.

“How do we do it? The Xander way, or the Buffy way?” Vi asked.

“We’re pressed for time,” Castle said, “so we’ll use Buffy’s method.” With a glance at Beckett, he explained: “Breaking down the front door and marching in.”

She blinked. “And the ‘Xander way’ would be?”

“Scouting beforehand, and having multiple entrance methods.” He saw her expression, and added: “Both methods have their uses. Xander’s is often overkill for a demon den.”

“Not always though,” Vi said.

“Yes.” Castle remembered those occasions well enough without the reminder.

Beckett sighed. “Let’s just do this.”

“That’s the spirit!” Castle cheered.

They didn’t actually kick down the front door, though. With Vi in the lead, they made their way to the back of the warehouse, sticking to the walls, until they reached a side entrance that looked like the last time it had seen better days had been back in the Great Depression. He saw Vi eyeing the roof, and shook his head. “We don’t split up.” Not with just one Slayer, and without the heavy weapons.

Vi pouted - she liked climbing and breaking and entering, which Castle felt he should have to worry about, if it wasn’t so useful for their work - then nodded, and moved to the door. A few kicks later, the door was no longer barring their way. Or being much of a door at all.

“I didn’t realise you meant it literally when you mentioned your plan,” Beckett said.

“Oh, I didn’t. We’re not kicking the front door open, after all,” Castle said, grinning as he followed his Slayer inside. He couldn’t hear a response, but he’d bet that Beckett was rolling her eyes behind him.

They were in a narrow hallway, with a few doors - storage rooms, bathrooms, he guessed. He didn’t want to guess in what state they were, after demons had used the building for some time.

At least their entrance hadn’t been that loud, so if no one was in the office part of the warehouse, then they might not have been noticed yet. Still, they’d better hurry. They turned around a corner, and a door was opened practically in their face. A demon - a M'Fashnik Demon, Castle noted - was staring at them, obviously surprised. It opened its mouth to yell or roar, but Vi buried her steel-toed boot in its stomach and knocked the air out of it. All it managed was a whimper. Then her sword went up into its wide-open mouth, and out the back of its head. For a moment, Vi kept the demon upright, then pulled her sword out - she hadn’t got it stuck this time, but he made a mental note to that she might need a reminder why it was better to slash throats than stab skulls - and the demon slid to the floor, dead.

“Those are usually mercenaries,” he said. “Someone’s got money. Or kittens.”

Vi growled, but Beckett shook her head. “Kittens… Of all the things, they want to be paid in kittens...”

“Well, they are apparently tasty, far easier to handle than souls, and used for Kitten Poker…” Castle said, rushing after Vi, who had rushed on. He found her listening on the next door.

“They’re behind this door, it’s the big hall. About a dozen I’d say.”

Those were not great odds, but they could handle a dozen. After a glance to check that Beckett was ready - she was; her face was set and she was holding her shotgun with the muzzle pointed at the floor - he nodded at his Slayer. Showtime.

Vi opened the door - it was unlocked, so she didn’t have to use her boot this time - and Castle blinked.

In front of them were about a dozen demons, servicing three vans, all with different colors and ads on them. One was made light-proof, another was getting cleaned of what looked like blood, and a cage of kittens was getting unloaded from the third. There was a lot of crates and other containers around as well, all sorted in different groups. There was an explanation for all the stops they had to check, and the half a dozen warehouses they had visited, but...

“Did we just discover a demon trucking company?”

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“And apparently, they just discovered us,” Kate Beckett heard Richard Castle mutter under his breath when one of the demons spotted them, and yelled something she didn’t understand. Since, a second later, half the demons in the hall started to rush them, she  could imagine what it had meant.

“Take at least one of them alive, Vi!” she heard Castle yell, right before firing his shotgun at a horned demon running towards the wildly waving a large wrench around. A slug to the stomach stopped its charge, though, and another shot took the creature’s head off.

Then she was busy defending herself. A demon with gray, stone-like skin jumped out from behind a crate and took a swipe at her. She ducked the wild swing and slammed the barrel of her shotgun into its crotch. While it howled she took a step back and fired a Dragon’s Breath round at it. For a second the monster was engulfed in flames, and then it was stumbling away, flailing its arms while it tried to put out the fire. She was about to put it out of its misery with a another shot when another demon jumped at her.

She tried to dodge, but didn’t manage it - the monster hit her shoulder and both of them went down in a tangle of limbs. The demon ended up on top of her, roaring in triumph as it raised its claws to slice into her face and chest. When it reared back it gave her an opening, though, and she hit it in its face with the barrel of the shotgun, sending teeth fragments and blood flying. The monster howled, and Beckett twisted her hips to throw it off. But it was too strong and too heavy and a wild swing sent her shotgun flying. Then it drew back its arm to take her head off. Beckett couldn’t draw her pistol with the monster’s legs pinning her down. She raised her arms in a futile gesture, expecting to die, when Castle slammed into it, pushing it off her.

She scrambled on all fours to grab her shotgun, hearing Vi yelling in the background, followed by inhuman howling. She couldn’t shoot, though, not with Castle and the demon grappling each other. For a moment, she hesitated.

Then Vi was there, reaching down and pulling the demon’s head back. A second later, she had slit its throat. “That’s why a blade is so much better!” she said, then charged at two demons that were opening a crate inside a van, her sword lopping off a limb from another demon who was trying to stand up. More bodies littered the floor, Beckett noticed - Vi had gone through the creatures with inhuman speed and power.

Castle got back up, groaning. “That demon was bulletproof, and I hadn’t time to draw my blade,” he said.

“Thank you,” Beckett said. She looked around. The demons had broken, as Castle would call it in his books - the surviving ones were trying to flee. One was at the front door, fumbling with the lock. Beckett was about to shoot it - a demon had almost killed her - but Vi was already there, kicking the creature’s legs out and then subduing it with a few blows to the head.

Suddenly, she heard an engine roar, and one of the vans started forward. She yelled a warning, but Vi had already noticed, and jumped out of the way. The van crashed into the front doors, and got stuck. A second later, Vi ripped the door off the van and dragged the demon out.

“I got two live ones!” she announced as she dragged both of them to Castle.

“Good work, Vi,” the man said, and the Slayer seemed to preen. “Do a sweep around the warehouse, to see if we missed someone, while we find out what they know.”

Vi nodded, and took off.

Castle crouched down next to the groaning demons. “Now… what exactly were you doing here?” he asked, prodding the one still conscious with a short sword.

The demon growled, baring its teeth - oversized fangs, Beckett noticed, a pure carnivore - at them. Castle stuck his blade into the monster’s arm, which made it howl in pain.

Kate pressed her lips together while the demon started to talk. That wasn’t ‘roughing up’ someone; that was torture. But it was a demon. A species, if she remembered ‘Black Forest Cannibals’ right, that preyed on humans. And they had to stop that ritual to save New York.

She still didn’t like it.

*****

Half an hour later, Beckett watched as Castle and Vi prepared to burn the warehouse down. “Who would have thought it - it was a demon trucking business! Those were quite the entrepreneurs,” Castle said shaking his head while he emptied a jerry can of gasoline on the collected corpses of the demons. “That’s an entry for the Watcher Journals! Giles will be so jealous!”

“And we’ve got their client list!” Vi added, gleefully.

“Yes!” Castle beamed. “They not only ran a business, they kept records! I’d admire that work ethic, if it hadn’t involved transporting demons and their victims.”

Beckett didn’t want to imagine how many people had been killed due to those demons offering their services to others. They had been operating for over half a year, and had been about to expand. “There will be another such business, won’t it?” she said.

Castle lost his grin, and nodded. “Yes. Even if we killed all of them - which I doubt - their clients are still around. Obviously, there is demand for this sort of service, so someone else will be stepping up to take over.”

“It never ends, does it?” Beckett said. “The war against those… monsters.” The thought that in a few months from now, such vans would be driving through her city again, carrying monsters, maybe even captured humans… she couldn’t stand it.

Castle shook his head. “No, not really. Hell won’t go away. But we’ve been doing very well, in the last few years, with so many Slayers as opposed to just one.” He smiled, and lit a rag with his lighter.

“Oh, yeah!” Vi said. “We’ve been cleaning up!”

The fact that things used to be worse was but a small comfort for Beckett. She sighed. It wasn’t as if her work as a detective was that different - for every perp she caught, someone else would take their place. In a weird way, that realisation made her feel better - she had had to come to terms with that part of her work, or she would have quit long ago.

Castle dropped the rag on the gasoline and took a step back. “Let’s go!”

A minute later, Vi was again breaking traffic laws by the dozens. Beckett didn’t complain, though - she didn’t want to be in the vicinity when the fire was reported.

“I wanted to ask,” Castle said, breaking the silence as he looked over his shoulder at her, “What did the special agent say about last evening?”

Beckett glared at him, but he simply grinned. “He kept asking me what I knew about you and your friends.”

“I trust you didn’t tell him anything?”

“You have the right to remain silent!” Vi said.

Beckett ignored the Slayer. “I stuck to the cover story. But he didn’t really believe me. I suspect he’ll run your names through the system as soon as he has the opportunity.”

“Why, that’s really unprofessional!” Castle shook his head in mock outrage. “I’d even call that abuse of power!”

Beckett knew he was more or less correct, but such things happened in the force. “Don’t tell me you’d not run Alexis’s boyfriends through the system, if you could!”

Castle suddenly coughed, and Vi chuckled. “He did, actually!”

“What?” Kate stared at the man. “How… did you hack the FBI?”

“Well… not me, personally.” Castle smiled sheepishly. “But we needed access to their files, to track some slippery demons.”

“And checking teenagers’ rap sheets is part of your work?” Beckett should feel outraged, but… if she had a daughter, she would probably do the same. Only if she had a reason to suspect something, of course. And it was the FBI’s system that was hacked, not the NYPD’s.

“Well…” Castle shrugged. “Guilty as charged?” He grinned.

Beckett shook her head. She suspected that he would have hacked the police’s system too. But she didn’t want to know - ignoring that would have been a bit more difficult. “Will he find something that will cause trouble?” she asked.

Castle frowned, then shook his head. “Not really. If he triggers a flag he’ll be warned off. The Council does have diplomatic immunity, and friends in high places.”

“That won’t stop Will. Not if he thinks there’s something illegal going on.” And if he thought she was in danger - or involved, Beckett added to herself. “He is a good investigator.”

“Well… let’s hope he isn’t too good at his job.” Castle frowned again. “If he stumbles upon a demon nest…”

Kate winced. When they had been a couple, Will hadn’t made fun of her Fantasy books, but she knew he didn’t think much of them. He wouldn't believe in demons, right until he met one trying to kill him. And he wouldn't know how to fight them either.

Her expression must have betrayed her thoughts, since Castle muttered a curse.

“Well, there’s always plan F!” Vi said.

“Plan F?” Kate looked at the Slayer.

“F stands for Faith. Or for Fucking,” the redhead explained. “She can distract him until he has forgotten all about you, and us.”

Kate snorted. “I doubt that will work.” Will wouldn’t fall for that.

“Mhh.” She could just see Vi grin, and frowned.

It wouldn’t work.

*****

 


	16. Entanglements

**New York, October 2009**

Back in Castle’s apartment, Kate Beckett realised quickly that “Plan F” hadn’t been serious. It should have been obvious, she thought, but those ‘Scoobies’ were so eccentric, it had sounded like something they’d actually try. At least she didn’t show any reaction - Vi wouldn’t get that satisfaction.

She leaned back in her seat and winced when her shoulder flared up in pain - that demon had done a number on her; she’d have trouble moving in the morning, and hiding it from Will would be a pain. If he noticed, he wouldn't rest until he had found the culprit, and she couldn’t exactly tell him that they had already killed it. Or what it had been.

“Are you hurt?” Vi asked, startling her.

“You should have said something!” Castle cut in. “I saw the demon tackle you, but I didn’t realise it had hurt you that much.”

“My shoulder is bruised, or rather, will be bruised.”

“That’s going to be nasty,” Vi said. “Especially since you don’t heal as quickly as we do.”

“She’s not the only one,” Castle said. “I don’t heal quickly either.”

“That means you should make more of an effort to not get hurt,” Vi said.

“Oh, yes!” Buffy said. “Watchers - they have a death wish!”

Spike snorted in the middle of drinking, and blood splattered all over his shirt. “Slayer! See what you did?”

“What?” Buffy turned to him. “Why are you blaming me?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Spike stared at her.

“Oh.” Buffy blinked. She coughed. “Anyway, Watchers should be more careful.”

“We try,” Castle said. “But the demons don’t always cooperate. Quite inconsiderate of them, really.”

“Oh, yes!” Buffy said, smiling. Then she frowned. “Wait… you’re being sarcastic! You’re talking like Giles again!”

“If I am, then only because we share the same burden.”

“What? Are you saying I’m a burden?” Vi turned away from where she had been checking Kate’s shoulder and and was, as far as the detective could tell, pouting at Castle.

“I was talking about our work,” Castle said.

“Ah, OK.” Vi turned back to Beckett, smiling. Then she frowned. “Wait… did he just…”

“Can we please take care of my shoulder? I’d rather not look like a cripple tomorrow and make Will even more suspicious of us,” Kate said, grinding her teeth before the Slayer could start another round of childish back and forth.

“Ah… yes.”

To her credit, Vi knew how to render first aid, although Kate was a tad sceptical that the ointment she used would work ‘like magic’. Unless it was something magical.

Kate glanced at her shoulder, suddenly wondering what exactly was seeping into her skin there. She couldn’t help remembering all those tales of magical mishaps, and hoped fervently that they wouldn’t use anything that wasn’t safe on her.

After watching Buffy and Spike having an argument about death wishes, though, she couldn’t be certain.

*****

“Thank you.” Kate Beckett said, sitting next to Castle in the man’s car as they drove towards her apartment.

“For driving you? It’s my pleasure!” Castle said. “No, really,” he added quickly, “I rarely get to drive my baby. Vi is quite possessive of things that do not belong to her.”

“I meant for saving my life, back there,” Kate explained.

“Oh, that.” After a moment, Castle grinned at her. “It was my pleasure as well.”

Kate hesitated for a few seconds, then said: “For you, that was normal, wasn’t it? Nothing special.”

“Tuesday,” Castle said.

“Pardon?”

“For most people, it would have been a pitched fight against a horde of demons. For us, it was Tuesday, as in, just another day at work,” Castle said.

“Ah.” What she had meant, then. “I think I understand you and your friends a bit better now.” And she couldn’t help wondering if they were all crazy. Castle had said that they coped with this madness by joking and being silly, but… you couldn’t really cope with that kind of stress. Or that kind of pressure.

“Good.” Castle wasn’t glancing at her, his attention on the road. Or so it seemed.

“You’ve been doing this for twenty years.”

“I took several years off, so it’s more like fifteen.”

“Yes.” It didn’t matter, fifteen or twenty, it was a far too long time. “And you’re not planning to stop.”

This time he glanced at her. “Could you stop, knowing what dangers are out there?”

She hissed. She hadn’t thought about that. Could she stop? Stop hunting demons, stop keeping New York safe, or safer? “No, I guess not.” Even though she should stop, she knew that.

He snorted, but didn’t say anything.

Kate bit her lower lip for a moment. “And Alexis is following in your footsteps.”

Once again he glanced at her, though with a serious expression this time. “Mine and her mother’s.” She was wondering if she could push a bit further and how best to word it, when he continued: “Before you ask: No, I don’t like it. I wish she would do something else - anything else. Even joining the army would be safer than this. But she’s mine and Mary’s daughter. As stubborn as either of us. She was born into this, daughter of two Watchers, and knew about demons and magic from the start. She wants to do this, and I can’t stop her. She’s too responsible to do something else.” After a second, he added: “All I can do is support and protect her as much as possible.” He snorted. “I’m told all parents worry about their children when they grow up, but I bet not all of them worry about the child fighting vampires.”

Beckett nodded, although she wasn’t certain he noticed. Castle would keep fighting in this war, if only to help protect his daughter. And should something happen to her, he’d keep fighting to avenge her.

They didn’t say anything else until they arrived in front of Kate’s home.

*****

The next morning, Kate was pleasantly surprised to wake up in less pain than she had expected. It seems the ointment had been magical. Unfortunately, she still had a rather large and ugly bruise, and prodding it with her fingers showed that bumping against something wouldn’t be a good idea either. But she could move more or less normally.

If Will still noticed... Well, she thought, with a grin, she could blame it on Castle. It would even be true, from a certain point of view. She forced the fantasies that thought had conjured away and got ready for work.

Half an hour later, she entered the 12th Precinct, and almost spilled her coffee when Will all but jumped at her. “Kate!”

“Good morning to you too, Will,” she said, with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

It didn’t seem to faze him. “You’re late.”

“Late?” She frowned and checked her clock. “I’m on time.”

“You used to come in earlier than this when we were working on our last case together.”

She suddenly felt angry at her her ex-boyfriend. Had he been that possessive when they had been together? They had mutually agreed to break up when he had moved to work at the FBI, and she was now wondering how he would have reacted if she had broken up with him. On the other hand, this was a good opportunity. She smiled sweetly. “Well, back then I wasn’t quite as busy at night.” When he was gaping at her, she rubbed her shoulder, not bothering to hide her wince. “Although we were a bit too adventurous. I must have sprained something.”

Her satisfaction at seeing Will frown was short-lived, unfortunately - she heard Esposito whistle behind her. Great. By noon, half the precinct would know about this. And she couldn’t even glare at the man. She blamed Castle - obviously, she was picking up the bad habit of not thinking things through before acting from him. And of course, he would think this was all very amusing.

But the worst was that she’d have to tell him, or he’d be impossible once he heard it from Esposito.

*****

“Marconi woke up, but he hasn’t been declared fit to be interrogated yet,” Will said once they were in the room the Feds had appropriated for their investigation.

Kate shrugged, as if she was unconcerned. “He was rather beaten up.”

“Castle seems a tad violent.” Will was staring at her.

She met his eyes, and didn’t bother to hide her anger. “What are you insinuating? They were shooting at us.”

“His friends are violent too. I’ve been asking around.”

She frowned. “You’ve been investigating Castle’s friends?” She had expected that, of course. Still...

“You saw how fast that girl took me down. She is much stronger than she looks. And she has been trained in combat.” He shook his head. “Something is fishy there. I know Castle is hiding something.” Will stared at her, waiting.

“If you find out anything, tell me,” she said.

“You know what he’s hiding.” He narrowed his eyes.

Kate shrugged. “I looked into his past. I found nothing.” It wasn’t exactly true. But there hadn’t been anything illegal.

Will frowned, but didn’t press the matter.

Kate was certain, though, that she was facing a rather tiring day. Will wasn’t the kind of man to let such a matter drop.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Will, for the last time: My relationship to Richard Castle is none of your business.” Kate Beckett was glaring at Will, or, if her former boyfriend kept this up, Agent Sorenson. That was the third time in an hour he had brought this up.

“But you can’t deny that he is hiding something.” Will was leaning forward, his hands flat on her desk.

She had withdrawn from the Feds’ temporary offices to do paperwork on her own - and to avoid his questions. “Everyone has secrets, Will. That’s why the police is not allowed to investigate someone without sufficient cause.”

“Don’t you think that Castle’s bodyguard is one of the most dangerous persons in the country is sufficient cause?”

“Please… Vi’s good, but not that good.” Even if she hadn’t been told, Beckett would have deduced that Buffy, Faith and Willow were far more dangerous than Vi from the way the three were treated.

“Oh really?” Will almost sneered. “Your colleague was so kind to tell me just how well she can shoot. And the reports from the Marconi shootout confirm that.”

She’d make Esposito pay for that, Beckett swore. “She’s a quick shot. Nothing that unusual - there are similar or better shooters in the quick-draw competitions.” But those didn’t hit that well, at that range.

Will wasn’t convinced, she could tell. She hadn’t expected it. “Why are you covering for him? You’re a cop.”

“Exactly. I know not to abuse my power.” She set her jaw. Try to insinuate she was a crooked cop, would he?

“Kate…”

Whatever Will had been about to say remained unsaid when his partner, Agent Clapton, interrupted them. “The killer struck again!”

*****

If there had been any doubt that the noose-demon had to be dealt with, permanently, then it had died with the Anosovs. Father, mother, teenage daughter, all dangling from the ceiling of their own apartment. They had struggled, Kate could tell from the way the furniture had been upended and pushed around. But they had stood no chance. Not against a demon. She stared at their faces, then shook her head.

“The daughter’s boyfriend found them. He was late for lunch,” Esposito said. That would have been the boy shaking inside a blanket she had seen when entering. “His car broke down, and he walked. Exercise saved his life.”

She snorted, more out of habit than because she found the joke funny. “I guess they took fingerprints again?”

“The same as found on the other locations,” Esposito confirmed. “But they’re not in the system.”

“Not unusual for serial murderers.” Not all of them had a rap sheet before they went over the edge.

“But it’s unusual that he’s not using gloves,” Esposito said. “Serial killers are usually smart. Anyone would know not to leave finger prints.”

Anyone but a demon who had been sealed in a coffin since the middle of the 19th century, Kate thought. “Maybe he wants to get caught. Or he’s taunting us.”

“Maybe. Sick bastard.” Esposito shook his head. “Too bad Castle’s not here.”

“Why?” She looked at him. “Will would have him arrested.”

“Yes. But he’d have some weird theory. I could use a laugh right now.”

So could she.

At least Will was now acting as professionally as she knew him to be. He walked over to them. “We found blood under the fingernails of the daughter. If she managed to scratch the killer, then we might have his DNA.”

“Which won’t be on record either,” Kate said.

He frowned, but she was correct - there was no way that the DNA would be on file, but not the fingerprints. “We might link it to more crimes.”

“The modus operandi is quite distinctive.” She pointed at the nooses. “I think we’ve had heard of such murders. Can we take them down now?”

Will hesitated, then nodded. “The family was Russian-American. Like the last victims.”

“Ties to organised crime?” Kate asked. It was a logical question, but she still felt guilty for deceiving the agent. She knew the motive, after all.

“It’s a possibility.” Will looked not quite convinced. “But hanging would be very unusual as a murder method in that milieu.”

Kate nodded. “What do the profilers say?”

“Nothing concrete yet. A possible fixation with lynchings. The vigilante hypothesis looks unlikely now.” Will looked at the daughter, whose body was now let down by two uniforms. “Unless the girl was involved in organised crime.”

“Any witnesses?”

“An old woman in the neighbouring house reported seeing someone ‘dark and tall’ leave through the backyard, but she didn’t see a face, or could describe anything beyond that,” Esposito said.

Will ground his teeth, Kate could tell. “It’s not much, but pass it around. Canvas the neighbourhood. Someone has to have seen something!”

Esposito went to pass the order on. Kate nodded, but she doubted anything would come from it. Not when the murderer had supernatural powers.

But, she thought, if they had his blood, then there might be something Willow could do. There had been that tracking ritual in ‘Blood Shadows’, where the Loremaster had used magic and a drop of blood from a demon to track the monster to its lair. Kate hoped that Castle had based this on a real spell.

*****

Kate hated herself for the thought, but the newest murder had caused one good thing: Will had turned back into the driven cop she was familiar with. Instead of the borderline stalker she had discovered recently. Although she had to admit that if their roles were reversed, she might have had a similar - slightly similar - reaction. She had investigated Castle quite… thoroughly… herself, after all, once she noticed the discrepancies of that annoying and yet charming man.

She wouldn’t be obsessed over a new girlfriend of Will, though. She hadn’t even asked him if he was in a relationship when they had met again after their breakup, back when they had been investigating that kidnapping case. Not that she had had to ask, given how Will had acted towards her.

She pushed the idle thoughts away. She had to focus on the task at hand - they had to stop those cultist demons from breaking the seal. And they had to stop the noose-demon from murdering more families. Hopefully, the blood they had found would help - provided there was enough left for a spell. Castle understandably, but at the moment frustratingly, didn’t put the correct details concerning magic into his books.

And without knowing how much was needed, or if it was even possible, there was no sense in trying to secure a sample herself. Which was a small consolation - it was quite the torture to be sitting in the precinct, working, yet knowing nothing she did here would advance either case.

She checked her watch. Just a few more hours.

“Hey, Beckett!”

The detective looked up. Esposito and Ryan were walking towards her, smiling. Either they had a breakthrough… no, that was not a proud smile. That was a teasing smile.

She glared at them, but while Ryan flinched, Esposito wasn’t deterred. She had known it would be a tiring day.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Good evening!” Richard Castle, leaning against his car, smiled brightly when he saw Beckett leaving the 12th Precinct. She looked a bit annoyed, though - and it wasn’t because of him, he was certain of that. “Something wrong?”

She sighed, frowned at him. “Your cover story.”

“Oh?”

“I had to explain my hurting shoulder, and now everyone thinks I sprained my shoulder having wild sex last night. With you.”

He fought not to smirk, much less chuckle, but his face must have given him away, since her frown turned into an icy glare.

“It’s not funny.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken - it’s very funny.” He held up his hands when she narrowed her eyes. “Of course, it’s funny in a very inappropriate way, and utterly unsuitable, considering our current situation,” he quickly said.

That seemed to placate her. She must be warming up to him! He gestured at the car. “Your carriage awaits, milady.”

“Vi’s letting you drive again? Generous of her.”

“Well, she’s busy preparing for tonight,” Castle said, walking around the car.

“Tonight?”

“We think we found the location of the seal. Or rather, the area it’s been hidden in,” he said when they drove away. “It’s, sadly, underground, which means it’ll be a bit tricky to get the drop on them. Not to mention that we’ll have to find the exact location.”

“How big an area are we talking about?” Beckett said, rubbing her shoulder.

“About a couple blocks. Volume,” he clarified.

“That’ll take the whole night.”

“Yes.” He grinned.

“Don’t say it!”

Castle pouted. That had been a great opening! “I wasn’t,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. Apparently, he had to work on his acting. His mother had said that frequently, of course, but hadn’t been in the habit to listen to her that much. “There was another noose murder. A whole family.”

He clenched his teeth and cursed. That damn demon… if only they had managed to track it down before.

“But we found a blood sample, under the fingernails of one victim. Is that enough to track it with a spell?”

He grinned. “It just might. I’ll have to ask Willow.” That was good news - if all went well, they’d stop the cult and the noose demon in one day.

Then he frowned. Had he just tempted Murphy? He hadn’t said it out loud, so it shouldn’t count!

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“So… we’re going to sift through a sewer. Why can’t those demons hide in a nice, sunny warm place?” Buffy complained with a sigh and pout that made Richard Castle wonder how Rupert had managed being her Watcher for years.

“Well, there was Sunnydale,” Xander said.

“That doesn’t count! They were hiding in yucky icky places there too.” Buffy shook her head.

“Like our high school?” Dawn asked.

“Yes!”

“And yet you sent me there!” Dawn sniffed. “Forced me to attend, brutally crushed my dreams of freedom…”

“You were playing hooky. And it’s still yucky.”

Rick cleared his throat. “Technically, it’s not a sewer. Many of the tunnels are storm drains and maintenance tunnels.”

“That’s hardly better! And you said ‘many’, not ‘all’! My poor shoes!”

“You’re wearing boots,” Dawn said.

“Designer boots.”

“No one forces you to wear them. You could wear sensible, sturdy, cheap boots.” Dawn shook her head.

“What?” Buffy looked horrified.

“I hate to interrupt this wonderful display of sibling love, but… we do have a cult to stop from destroying a greater chunk of New York.” Rick said.

“Including several shoe stores,” Beckett said. She was snarking with the best of them - Castle was so proud.

“Right.” Buffy looked at Willow. “Will, were you able to narrow the area down with your magic?”

The witch shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. I couldn’t refine the detection spells enough, not without more information about the seal.” She frowned, then smiled. “But I think I can track the noose demon with even miniscule amounts of blood, if I use some parts of the coffin it was locked in for so long. The residue should act like a catalyst and sympathetic link, and allow me to track it down using an adjusted detection spell, and…”

“Bottom line: Once we have dealt with the seal, we can deal with the noose demon thanks to Will’s mojo.” Xander grinned. “Sorry to interrupt your fascinating explanation, but we are on the clock, as Rick pointed out.”

The author in question wondered who still used the word ‘mojo’. Somehow he didn’t think that Xander was quoting Austin Powers.

“Alright.” Buffy looked at everyone present. “We’ll split in three groups. Faith, Spike and Dawn are one group, me, Xander and Will another, and Vi, Rick, and Detective Bucket will be the third.

“Beckett,” the woman whose name had just been mangled said with a frown. Castle was tempted to add ‘with two ts’.

“Yes.” Buffy pointed at the map spread on Castle’s dinner table. “Faith will start with the main sewer entrance there, my group will enter through the storm drains on this side, and the locals will cover the maintenance tunnels on the other side. We’ll work our way to the center. Our Wi-Phones will still work underground, so use them to alert the others once you find the seal.”

“Wi-Phone?” Beckett whispered next to Castle.

“Cell phones enchanted by Willow. Perfect reception anywhere on the planet.” Castle didn’t think adding that the phones also could use all networks without paying was a good idea. Beckett was adjusting to the realities of demon hunting, but she might still take offense at such details.

“Any questions?” Buffy asked. “Serious questions only,” she added when several hands were raised. All hands dropped quickly. “Good. Let’s go! We have shoe stores and malls to save!”

*****

“To think that the fate of the city is in the hands of a Valley Girl and her friends…” Beckett said later while Vi did her best to break as many traffic laws as possible without crashing Castle’s Shelby.

“The world’s fate has been in her hands several times. And as it still stands, I think it’s in good hands,” Castle said, a bit sharper than intended. He understood Beckett, but the Scoobies had earned more respect. Even if they did all they could to make the worst impression - the things he had heard from Rupert, back when they had started to rebuild the Council… apparently, there had been a bet running of any of the older members of the Council who had survived the First would suffer a heart attack after meeting them.

“And no matter how they act, they know their stuff. We were sent to the maintenance tunnels since we’re the locals and have the most experience with them,” Vi said. “Well, Rick and I, at least. You’re not that experienced.”

“To my great envy,” Beckett said.

“At least they aren’t steam tunnels!” Castle said. No one got the joke, though.

Vi turned another corner, right into an alley and stopped in front of a locked metal door. “Vi, remind me to tell you to drive through a car wash on the way home,” Castle said, after he had stepped into something right after leaving his car. “This alley looks like it wasn’t cleaned in decades.”

“The door’s hinges are oiled, though,” Beckett said. “Someone’s been maintaining them.”

Vi sniffed the air, then the door. “I don’t smell demon.”

“Homeless people like to seek shelter in such locations too,” Castle said, pulling his Ack Pack out of the trunk and handing Beckett a shotgun. Vi wa already armed. “Although only the inexperienced ones - the older ones know that it’s dangerous, even though they might not know about demons prowling the tunnels.”

“Do they avoid the maintenance tunnels still in use?” Beckett asked while Castle opened the door with one of the keys he had acquired for such occasions.

“No, they generally avoid the workers, though - those would be missed.” Castle pushed the door open, and Vi slid inside. “Although the urban legends of albino crocs living in the sewers are not entirely unfounded.”

Beckett sighed. “Next you’ll telling me the tooth fairy is real too.”

“Oh, no - that demon was dealt with by a Slayer in Kent in the 18th century,” Castle said. She stared at him, and he shrugged. “Apparently, the demon liked to rip the teeth out of the children’s mouths to make necklaces. Don’t ask me why the legend claims it’ll leave a coin for a tooth.”

Beckett muttered something Castle didn’t catch, but Vi snickered. “Onward!” he said. “We have malls to save, as our fearless leader said.”

Thanks to his maglite, he could see Beckett glare at him. Nothing like a little joke to relieve the tension.

*****

“I would have thought you’d use night vision gear instead of a maglite,” Beckett said an hour and a dozen tunnels later. They hadn’t found any demons so far. The other groups hadn’t had more luck either, though Faith’s group had wiped out a vampire nest.

“I do, on occasion. But since you’re not trained in its use, we couldn’t use the gear anyway.” Castle was almost certain the detective would ask for such training at the next occasion. Which meant, he thought with a grin, laser tag in dark tunnels! Alexis would love it. “Besides, it’s mounted on the barrels of the guns, so it’s quite handy.” Though finding a way to mount the thing on his flamethrower’s nozzle had been a pain.

Vi, who was on point, suddenly stopped and held her fist up. Castle hissed and checked his flamethrower.

“I smell demons,” the redhead said. “Several of them, and I’ve smelled them before.”

“Like a bloodhound,” Beckett muttered.

“That sounds, I mean, that smells like the ones we’re looking for,” Castle said. He thumbed his phone and informed the other two groups that they had a probable contact. “We’re checking this out. Lead the way, Vi!”

His Slayer moved forward, disappearing in the shadows. Castle and Beckett waited so their lamps wouldn’t betray their presence. A few minutes later, Vi returned. “I haven’t seen the seal, but there’s about a dozen of demons hanging around in large room up ahead. The seal could be behind a few doors.”

Castle nodded. “I’ll call the others.” They could take a dozen with Vi and surprise on their side, but if there were more hiding nearby, this could get dicey. It was better to wait until the rest was here as well.

A scream interrupted him right when he was sending the coordinates to the other groups.

“They’ve got a hostage!” Vi said.

Castle and his Slayer exchanged a glance. His plan to wait for reinforcements had just been shot. If they waited, the hostage might be killed. He nodded. And Vi took off running.

Rick and Beckett followed, not quite as fast. “I thought they didn’t sacrifice people to open the seal.”

“They don’t. But they might still want dinner,” Castle said.

Screams and yells from up ahead told them that Vi was engaging the demons already. Then they reached a small door, squeezed through - Castle almost got stuck with his flamethrower - and faced a large room full of demons. Vi was in the midst of a dozen of them, trying to cut her way to a screaming girl bound next to what looked like an industrial grill. Dinner indeed.

While he was still trying to find a way to use his Ack Pack without frying either Vi or the girl, one of the other doors opened, and more demons rushed in.

Castle greeted them with a burst from his flamethrower.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

Three demons were lit up and started to stumble around on fire, their roars turning into screams of pain. One of them hit another demon with its flailing arms, sending the creature to the floor, where Beckett shot it in the head.

More monsters managed to avoid the flames, though, and came at them. Richard Castle snarled, and snapped off another burst of flame that turned the two closest into living torches. The rest were still charging, but they had to dodge the two burning creatures, and Castle used the time gained to back off and spray fuel on the ground. He ignited it with his third charge and a curtain of flames sprang up.

One of the demon cultists apparently couldn’t or wouldn’t stop in time, though, and ran through the flames, screeching horribly as it tried to claw Castle’s face off. He deflect the blows with the nozzle of his Ack Pack, then smashed the horned demon into its face, following up with a kick that sent it back through the flames. Unfortunately, he almost lost his balance as a result, and stumbled for a second when the monster turned out to be much lighter than expected.

A quick glance showed him that Vi had reached the bound girl over the bodies of half a dozen demons, but was now surrounded by the remaining monsters. Beckett was trying to fend off two demons with her bent shotgun, but was driven back into Castle evading a swing from another horned demon.

He pushed past her and aimed his flamethrower. The demons’ angry roars turned to horrified screeches when they saw him, and their raised arms did nothing to stop the flames. They wailed as they burned. Six charges left in his Ack Pack.

A series of shots - pistol shots - erupted behind him, and seconds afterwards, something large and heavy slammed into his back, forcing him to the floor and driving the air from his lungs. Liquid splashed on his back, and for a moment, he feared that his tank had ruptured. When he managed to twist his hps and throw the weight on his back off, he realised that it was the blood of the demon who had rammed into him - it was making a gurgling noise while trying to stem the blood pouring out of its wrecked throat.

Castle pushed himself up to his knees, almost blindly spraying fire to cover his exposed flank - five charges left - while Beckett was emptying her pistol into an apparently bullet-proof demon which was already so close, Castle couldn’t hit him without burning Beckett as well. The Detective was dodging the creatures wild swings, until a foot caught her in the stomach. She was thrown back a few feet, then collapsed with a groan.

Castle hissed with sudden, blazing rage and torched her assailant. Four charges left. He laid down another curtain of flames - three charges left - then turned to help her, but Beckett was already getting back on her feet, although she was swaying a bit. “Are you OK?”

“Don’t mind me, we’ve got a city to save!” she said, looking around.

“Your pistol is on the other side of the fire,” Castle said.

“And my shotgun is broken.”

“Take my pistol!” He pulled it out of its holster and handed it to her, noticing her wince when she reached out with her right arm. “You’re hurt.” Bruised ribs for sure, broken maybe, even.

“Yes,” she snapped, and moved past him, towards Vi, who had whittled her enemies down to two. Beckett brought the Glock 20 up in a two-handed grip and shot one of them in the back of its head. It didn’t kill the demon, but it was hurt enough for Vi to easily dispatch it with a blow from her sword. The last demon tried to run, but her blade slashed at its legs, and it collapsed, howling until the slayer stabbed its neck.

Vi looked hurt as well. The redhead was bleeding from several gashes in her arms, one along her ribs, and her left cheek was swelling, Castle noticed. But she was still ready to fight, and the girl the demons had been about to eat was still alive. A few cuts later, she was free of her bounds, but shivering and sobbing.

They couldn’t remain much longer in the room - with all the fires Castle had started, the air was getting really bad. Not to mention the stench from burning demons.

“Let’s move back before the air runs out,” Castle said.

Vi nodded and picked the girl up. “Go on. I’ll bring up the rear.”

Castle would have made a remark about overprotective Slayers if not for his near-brush with death, and took point. “I need my gun,” she said. She was already stepping around the flames, and Castle, muttering a curse, followed her.

“We don’t have that much time.”

“It’s registered. I’m not going to leave it here and later lie about where I lost it.” Beckett shot him a glare, then picked up her gun.

“Paperwork, more terrifying than demons,” Castle said, which prompted a short chuckle from the Detective which turned into a cough.

They really had to get out - it was already difficult to breath, and his throat ached.

Just as he reached the door they had entered through, Vi growled.

“Incoming.”

*****

“How many of those demons are there?”

Richard Castle glanced at Beckett before answering. She looked focused, tense, but she was a bit unsteady on her feet. The pistol in her hand didn’t waver, though. “The usual answer is ‘too many’.”

“Or ‘too damn many’, if you’re asking Faith,” Vi added. The girl - they hadn’t even asked her her name, Castle realised, whimpered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll kill them all!” Castle’s Slayer said. Judging by the way the girl was cringing, Vi’s reassuring smile hadn’t been quite as reassuring as she had it intended to be. It had to be all the blood covering her - most of it not hers. At least the girl wasn’t screaming.

“Where are they coming from?” Castle asked. He could neither hear nor spot any enemy.

Vi pointed behind them.

“Good.” He had been worried that the demons had cut them off. “We’re almost clear.”

Right then, VI suddenly jumped back, and a second later, the tunnel in front of them caved in, sending a cloud of dust towards them. Castle barely managed to turn away, and avoid inhaling a lungful of the stuff. “Murphy really has it in for me tonight,” he muttered.

“What?” Vi, already on her feet again, turned towards him. “Did you provoke Murphy?”

“I didn’t say it out loud - that doesn’t count!” Castle protested. The girl was screaming again, despite Beckett’s attempts to calm her down.

“Those cultists are entirely too prepared for my taste,” Castle said, aiming his flamethrower down the tunnel. Three charges left. Then he’d be down to his sword. “I’m beginning to think that Buffy is on to something with her complaints about unfair demons.”

“Imagine that: Evil Demons not playing fair. Who’d have expected that.” Beckett stood up and stepped to his side. She really was adapting quite well to the snark.

“I’ll fry the first waves. After that, we’ll let Vi have fun, and mop up the leftovers.” Castle tried to sound more confident than he felt. The tunnel was narrow, which favored them, but the demons knew the area better, and if they had managed to cave one part of the tunnel in, who knew what else they could do? He wasn’t keen on finding that out the hard way, but it didn’t seem as if he had a choice.

Vi nodded. No backtalk - she must have realised their predicament. He took a small step forward. Did he hear them coming now? Footsteps. No, those scraping noises - claws.

He fired as soon as he saw the first demon. Two charges left. It shrieked and went down, but more were coming. The burning vanguard provided a nice choke point, and Castle fired again when more of them were trying to slip past the dying creature in front. One charge left. He’d love to put down another wall of flames, but the tunnel was narrow, they’d risk suffocating.

The howling and shrieking was hurting his ears now, resounding from the tunnel walls, while half a dozen demons burned to death. But there were more waiting behind. “There must be a nest somewhere,” he muttered, reading his last charge.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Vi said, loud enough to be heard over the noise.

“She’s the detective, I’m the consultant author.”

“Which would make you Watson - he wrote the books,” Vi retorted.

“He’s a fictional character,” Castle said. He saw movement up ahead. The fires were dying down. Soon they’d rush them again. Although, he thought suddenly, if they survived this, then that scene would so go into the book. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, just with a happy ending.

That was when the first stone flew past him, hitting the cave-in behind them with a loud crack. He ducked, and another sailed over his head. Vi deflected a third with the scabbard of her blade.

“I really hate it when demons get smart,” Castle muttered. They’d have to charge them, or be stoned to death. He didn’t relish either choice.

Buffy really was on to something here.

*****

 


	17. The Seal

**New York, October 2009**

“Damn demons,” Richard Castle heard Vi mutter, “see how you like a taste of this!”

Then her arm whipped forward, and Castle heard a crack, followed by howl.

“Yes! Strike!”

Castle resolved right then and there to never let Vi play baseball with anyone he cared about on the other team. Although if the demon was howling, it was probably not hurt enough. “Did it stay down?”

“No!” Vi snapped, throwing another stone. No howling this time. “But now it did!”

They still couldn’t stay in the tunnel, but they had gained some time to find a better solution than to charge a horde of demons. Though, Castle thought, as far as getting killed went, it had a certain flair.

He banished the morbid thoughts - sometimes, his talent as a writer really wasn’t helpful, although he’d never admit that to anyone else - and focused on the task at hand: Surviving this trap. He had one charge left in his Ack Pack, and probably a bit less fuel than he’d like. There had to be something clever he could do with that. He heard another rock fly overhead and was glad that he was crouching. Something that wouldn’t lead to him getting stoned - and not in the good way - or suffocating.

Ah! He’d miss the Ack Pack, but he had a spare, and a line on another. Castle pulled the flamethrower off and quickly secured the nozzle to it with its straps. “Vi! Throw this!” It worked in the movies, after all. And the tank should be empty enough for some explosive fumes to have built up. And if not… fire would still work.

Vi grinned, took the flamethrower, and almost took Castle’s head off when she whirled it around before launching it towards the hiding demons. His Slayer had drawn her Glock before the Ack Pack was halfway on its way, and she fired right before it reached the demons.

The explosion filled the tunnel with fire and screams.

“Yes! Perfect airborne burst!” Vi cheered, already sprinting forward.

Castle, drawing his sword, was close on her heels. Or as close as he managed with a charging Slayer. Beckett would have to bring up the rear in her wounded state - they needed to break the enemy now!

In front of him, Vi jumped through the flames both illuminating and obscuring the tunnel, leading with her sword. A gurgling noise told him that she had found a mark already. A howling scream cut short indicated another dead demon.

Then Castle reached the fire, shielded his face with his arms and jumped. He felt the heat wash over him, and then he was through - only to slip on blood or fuel on landing, and fall down, hard - and right on his back, which already was hurt. He thought his sleeve had caught fire too, but he couldn’t do anything about it right then since a demon with flaky, mottled skin roared, far too close, and Castle had to roll to the side to evade a claw swipe. His own swipe had longer reach thanks to his sword, and cut into the limb, but not deep enough to maim it. The creature still pulled back, snarling, and Castle stood up and lunged before it could recover, burying his blade into its protruding gut.

The demon’s belly popped like a balloon, showering Castle with blood and other liquids. At least the demon collapsed, mouth moving without making any sound, so it probably was done for. And his sleeve was no longer on fire. He still cut off its head while checking on Vi and Beckett with a glance.

His Slayer was wreaking havoc on the demons, slicing and dicing with her blades - she had drawn her combat knife as well. At least the large amount of money he had spent on her collection was being put to good use, he thought. Even if modern blades would have been as good or better, at a tenth the cost. Still, he could afford the money.

A few demons seemed to be running, although Castle didn’t know if they were breaking, or trying to rally or fetch reinforcements. A few shots rang out, and the furthest toppled over, holding its legs - Beckett had arrived. She looked a bit singed - she had probably not jumped through the fire - and madder than hell while she shot the other fleeing demons in the legs. Hotter than hell too, he thought, blinking at the sight.

Then a demon evading Vi stumbled towards him, and Rick lunged again - most demons didn’t expect humans to charge them, not that it mattered with this one since it was still looking over its shoulder back at the Slayer when Rick’s blade slid into its throat. That didn’t kill it, unfortunately, at least not immediately. It held one hand to its throat and flailed with the other, to keep him at bay, but Castle ducked, and stabbed low. The monster shrieked even louder, then toppled over and died. Or did a pretty good imitation of it. Vi was finishing off the last demons Beckett had shot, so Castle crouched down and sawed through the monster’s head.

“Fetch the girl,” he told Beckett, “we need to leave.”

While the detective went back to grab the rescued girl - Castle hoped they wouldn't have to send Vi to carry her - he moved a bit ahead with Vi, checking for more demons.

“We need an alternate route out… let me check my maps.” A few clicks on his magically reinforced smartphone - ‘Buffy-proof’, Willow called it, ‘much better than fire and water and shock-proof’ - revealed that they would have to back up through the chamber they saved the girl in to get out of these tunnels. And the other two groups were still quite a distance away. Castle muttered a curse. “We can either go through the chamber where we met those nice monsters, or we hole up somewhere and wait for the Scoobies to arrive.”

“Let’s kill more demons!” Vi said, as expected. His Slayer was covered in as much blood and gore as Castle himself, but hers was from many different monsters, not one bloated one, and she looked eager to ruin her clothes some more. No wonder her cleaning and clothes bill rivaled her mortgage.

“With our bare hands?” Beckett said.

“I’ll loan you a blade of mine,” Vi said. “As long as you don’t break it.”

Beckett glared at the girl, and while she’d never admit it, Castle thought, she didn’t look like she was in any shape to wield a blade effectively - if she had even trained in its use. And, once the excitement of combat had passed, Castle had to admit that he wasn’t in a good shape either. His back hurt so bad, he didn’t think he could carry a flamethrower if he had one. He shook his head. “We’ll hole up somewhere and wait for reinforcements.” ‘Holing up’ sounded much braver than ‘hiding’.

*****

“It’s like Aliens, just in a good way,” Castle commented twenty minutes and thirty seconds - he had checked - later, in a former storage room.

“What?” Beckett stared at him. Even the girl, who had been close to catatonic, Lisa was her name, Castle recalled, looked up from where she had buried her head in her arms, leaning on the detective.

“That scene in Aliens. The Colonial Marines are in a small room, one is checking the scanner, to see where the aliens are.” Castle held his smartphone up. “This is the same, just the dots are our friends, and we don’t have dots showing the demons’ positions.” Which would be a very handy app for his cell phone, Castle thought. Even though Willow claimed it wasn’t possible to turn her spells into apps.

“Didn’t that scene end with the aliens dropping from the ceiling and massacring everyone?” Vi asked. The Slayer was leaning on the wall at the door.

“Not everyone,” Castle protested, but judging by the whimpers from Lisa, and the glare from Beckett, not everyone found his musings as interesting as he himself did. Well, he was the bestselling author!

“Pf!” Vi snorted, then tapped her nose. “I can smell them far before they are in range, anyway.”

“Like a female bloodhound,” Beckett said.

“Exactly!” Vi blinked. “Wait… You just called me a bitch again!”

“No, she didn’t!” Castle cut in, even though he thought Beckett pretty much had done it - the detective was adapting to the ways of the snark quite quickly. And, Castle added, he was getting corrupted by the Scoobies’ Cali-speak more than he had thought. ‘The ways of the snark’? His editor would kill him for such a phrase!

Just as he was about to bemoan his cruel fate, his scanner, no, his smartphone, beeped. The Scoobies were near! He opened his mouth to announce the good news when Vi preempted him.

“The cavalry’s arriving.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You just deduced that from my smartphone’s signal!” And his smile, of course.

“No, I smelled them! I’m just that good!” Vi said.

“I’ll tell them you said they smelled. So bad, you could detect them from a hundred yards away,” Castle said.

“Buffy and Faith will know how I meant it!”

“But will they admit that?” Castle said.

“If it’s supporting me, or you? What do you think, ‘corrupter of Dawn’?”

“What?” What had his Slayer been telling the Scoobies?

They were still arguing when Buffy knocked on the door.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Wow, you smell like you’ve been showering with soap-au-demon!”

As greetings went, this was one of the ruder ones Richard Castle had experienced. However, since Buffy’s arrival meant that he, his Slayer, his - or so he presumed - detective, and the girl they saved - Lisa - were safe, he didn’t mind.

And he had to admit that he did smell - the demon’s blood and gore and whatever fluid had had filled its belly stank to heaven. “I gather you speak from personal experience,” he said, “but it was just a rather volatile demon.”

Vi giggled, and Buffy pouted. “What? No! That’s über-yucky! Gross!”

“Well, you mentioned it,” Xander said.

“But only because he does smell that bad!”

“So, you do have personal experience to compare it to!” The young man was grinning.

Behind him, Willow sighed. “We do have a seal to save. The anti-demony type, not the cute and fluffy mammalian type.”

“And designer boots to avenge!” Buffy added.

“That’s not exactly a priority,” Xander said.

“Xander! Please show some consideration for Giles!” Buffy shook her head,

“What?” Xander sounded as confused as Castle felt.

“You know how worked up he gets when he has to replace the shoes that died in the line of duty!” Buffy sighed.

Castle cleared his throat. “We can discuss poor Rupert’s troubles later.”

“Right. How badly is he hurt, Vi?” Buffy asked.

“My back’s bruised, but I can still fight,” Castle said, glaring at his Slayer before the redhead could say anything. He nodded at Beckett and Lisa. “Going back by ourselves is not safe anyway, and neither is staying here.”

“Right.” Buffy looked at him, then nodded. “But you stay in the back! No heroics!” She sighed. “Not that you’ll listen, anyway. Giles never did! Old people must have a death wish!”

“To be honest, he tried to stay safe,” Willow said.

“There is no try.” Xander was grinning, or so Castle assumed - the man was covering the way they had come from with his own flamethrower.

“Shut up, Yoda!” Buffy said. “Let’s go! We have demon butts to kick, and a ritual to stomp. Stop, I mean. You know what I mean!”

“What about Faith’s group?” Vi asked.

“We’ll meet them on the way, or at the seal. Time’s running short.”

And they were off.

*****

Castle knew things were about to turn ugly when he felt the ground shake just a bit.

“Fooey!” In front of him, Willow cursed, or tried to.

“Will?” Buffy had stopped and looked over her shoulder.

“Someone just did a powerful spell. The Earth is shuddering in response.”

“That means bad things are happening,” Buffy said.

“Really bad things,” Willow said.

Just what Castle wanted to hear.

“Hurry!” Buffy was already moving, far quicker now than before.

“Faith’s group is still half a click away,” Xander said, as if he was commenting on the weather - and while keeping pace with a speeding Slayer. That man was far too calm and far too fit for a Watcher, Castle thought. Of course, Castle himself was hurt, and had an excuse for falling behind them.

Castle looked behind him. Vi was still bringing up the rear. “Go!” he said, between gulping down air. “They’ll need you!”

His Slayer was past him before he could say anything else. Not that he needed to - they knew each other too well.

He followed after them, but at a slower pace. Both because of his back, and because of Beckett, who was holding Lisa’s hand and dragging the girl with them. Lisa had been silent so far, still under shock, Castle thought.

“It’s not looking good, isn’t it?” the detective said when she reached him.

“Well… do you know how in my books, it always looks like the heroes are about to lose, but then pull through and win? They are based on actual events.” Castle smiled encouragingly.

“Half of them also end with the heroes dying.”

“Err… yes. But this is not going to be one of those stories, trust me.”

“If you’re wrong I’ll never read any of your books again.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” Castle said. He chuckled, despite the pain that caused in his back. Definitely a bruised rib.

Up ahead, he heard screaming and howling, and things breaking. He forced himself to speed up a bit, so he’d be in front of Beckett and Lisa. After two winding turns, he stepped over the broken remains of a door. And stopped.

In front of him, the Scoobies were battling dozens of demons. The monsters were protecting a pedestal upon which the seal was mounted - together with half a dozen bound people, and a pink-skinned demon with tufts of hair growing from the weirdest places, wearing a robe that looked like a dress.

“I guess they decided that volunteers were no longer cutting it,” Castle muttered.

That wasn’t grounds for concern. The fact that Willow, standing right in front of them, seemed frozen, hands spread, and eyes locked with the pink demon, was.

“The seal’s broken, Willow’s holding it closed!” Vi yelled. His Slayer and Xander were protecting the witch while Buffy was trying to reach the pedestal. Three Polgara Demons were blocking her, though - and those creatures seemed far tougher than normal. Almost as if they were on a Hellmouth. That must be the effects of the broken seal, Castle thought. He cursed. Xander had used his flamethrower to great effect - half a dozen demon corpses were smoking on the ground - but then must have ran out of fuel. Vi was holding three demons at bay, but she was hard-pressed to keep them from passing her.

Shots rang out next to him. Beckett was firing her pistol - no, Castle’s - at the pink demon. The detective had adapted well to demon hunting. Sadly, the shots were not having much of an effect. The monster had not even the courtesy to stagger a bit and glare at them.

Castle hated being ignored.

“Faith and her group will be here soon,” he said, moving up behind Xander, his sword ready. If Willow held out until then… but the Witch was trembling. Stopping a ritual right when it was succeeding and holding an ancient seal closed was taxing even the Red Witch.

He saw Buffy behead one of the Polgara Demons, but there were still dozens of demons between her and the seal. What could they do? Bullets didn’t seem to work, Castle had no flamethrower, and grenades might break the seal entirely, even if he had some. He made a mental note to bring grenades with him, next time.

How could they… he saw something dangle from the ceiling in the back, and looked up. His eyes widened. Old power lines criss-crossed the ceiling. They wouldn’t hold him, but… “Buffy! Jump to the ceiling!” he yelled.

The blonde Slayer looked up, then ducked right under a swing from the by now sole surviving Polgara Demon, then jumped straight up. She grabbed two lines with her hands - one of them ripped loose, but the other held. Castle saw her grin while the demons howled, and then she let go off the fixed line, and used the loose line to swing forward, landing right next on the pedestal.

The pink demon gestured, and was backing off, but not quickly enough - the Slayer caught its head with a round kick, and sent the creature flying into the back wall.

Beckett gasped next to him. A glance showed him that Willow’s hair was changing color to white, and she was now floating. Buffy must have broken whatever stalemate the witch had been in. Crackling lightning appeared around the witch, then surged forth towards the seal. Buffy dove off the pedestal, leading with her blade and landed right on top of the pink demon while behind her, the seal lit up, and blinding light filled the room.

Castle blinked, briefly blinded, and waved his blade in front of him, in case a demon tried to attack right now, until he could see clearly again. Buffy was holding up the head of the demon leader, and Vi had used the distraction to cut down two more demons. For a moment, everyone, Scoobies, Team Castle, and the demon horde, seemed frozen. The bound sacrifices couldn’t move anyway.

Then Willow growled, and reached out with her hands, and white lightning struck the demons in front of her. They shrieked, twitched, and dropped, smoking. And the lightning jumped from them to the next demons. That seemed to finally break the resolve of the horde, and the demons turned to flee.

They didn’t make it. The lightning filled the whole room, frying the demons where they stood, while Willow floated above them, her hair rising around her head. Castle suddenly understood why Willow was the scariest member of the Council, and not Buffy or Faith.

The witch rolled her head back, shuddered, and gently set down again while her hair started to return to her natural colour.

“Sheesh, Willow! Watch where you throw the force lighting!” Xander, unsurprisingly, was either used to such displays, or masking his own reaction with a joke.

Willow glared at him. “I told you many times: It’s an elemental spell, not Force Lightning. Force Lightning would be evil!”

“Did she get my hair? Is it all poofy and fried? Do I need to visit an emergency hairstylist?” Buffy was looking around wildly, presumably for a mirror.

They just couldn’t stay serious for a second longer than absolutely necessary, Castle thought. Out loud, he said: “More importantly: Is the seal unbroken again?” He really needed to watch his language near the Scoobies, he thought - that was another phrase his editor would loathe.

“Yes. I have restored the bindings they had broken,” Willow said.

“The city’s safe then?” Beckett asked.

“Yes.”

As safe as New York could be, with the Scoobies visiting, Castle thought.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

Richard Castle felt like sitting down. The Scoobies seemed to have the matters in hand. Or in the grip of magic, to be precise - right now, Willow was levitating the seal on some hand pallet truck Buffy had procured. Castle assumed it was the same one the demons had used to transport the seal. Not that he cared much, with his back aching.

“Why haven’t they freed the hostages yet?” Beckett asked.

Rick glanced at her. The detective was sitting on the floor, with Lisa in her arms. He started to shrug, then thought better of it when even the slight movement caused him pain. “I think they want to check them first. Some of them might not be exactly innocent, even if the demons tied them up.” They were curiously, suspiciously silent, too - not demanding to be released. That could be shock, of course.

“Like in ‘Darkness Falls’? When the victim attacked the Loremaster after being freed? But that girl was under a magical compulsion.”

She really knew his books by heart, Castle noted, not for the first time. “Exactly. But I was more concerned about the fact that the demons had deals with the mob. Maybe after Marconi’s arrest, they decided to use force rather than deals.”

“I see.” Beckett looked at him with an unreadable expression, then stared at the still bound victims. “And if they are criminals? What are you doing with them?”

“It depends on what crimes they have committed.” Castle wasn’t about to expand on that; she knew what he meant.

She knew it and she hated it. He was well aware of that. But some things couldn’t be let unpunished and couldn’t be taken to judges.

Vi and Buffy suddenly stopped manhandling the pallet truck and turned to the side door, blades in hand. Castle tensed and was about to move in front of Beckett and Lisa, then he saw the two Slayers relax.

“You’re late!” Buffy yelled. “Did you get lost? Or did Dawn find some runes and want to translate them?”

The door was opened a tad forcefully, and Faith entered, followed by Spike and Dawn. The Slayer’s sister was scowling. “No, we were simply the farthest group from here.”

“And the slowest!” Buffy said. “Maybe you need to exercise some more, so you’re fitter.”

“Maybe you need to meditate some more, so you’re not so impatient.”

“Girls!” Xander shook his head. “Play nice!” The man seemed utterly unimpressed by the two glares leveled at him. Castle was impressed.

“What’s with the humans?” Spike asked, pointing his thumb at the bound former sacrifices while the two girls went through the ‘she started it’/’did not!’ routine.

“We’re not quite certain if they’re victims or accomplices,” Willow explained.

“Did you tie them up?” The Vampire eyed the captives. “A bit sloppy.”

“I didn’t! The demons did it!” the witch said.

“Good excuse!” Spike said, grinning.

“Oh, you!” Willow pouted.

“Guys! Can we get a move on?” Faith apparently had her priorities straight. “I’m feeling the H&Hs, and I can’t really take care of them down here.” Or not.

“H&Hs?” Beckett asked in a low voice.

Not low enough, since Faith turned and grinned at her. “Slayers are hungry and horny after fighting.”

“Some Slayers, not all of us,” Buffy said, frowning.

“Sure, sure,” Faith said, her grin widening. “And demons are totally not dangerous.”

Castle closed his eyes for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I don’t want to interrupt this fascinating discussion, which will make for a very nice scene in my next book, but both the detective and myself are hurt, and we still need to deal with the captured people there, Lisa, and the seal.”

“You wouldn’t really use this for a scene in your book, would you?” Buffy was making puppy-eyes at him.

Castle gave her his best grizzled veteran stare. “Try me.”

Unfortunately, Buffy had more battles under her belt than he had, and was unimpressed. But at least she got the rest moving. Castle might yet see his bed before the sun was up again.

*****

“A truth spell? You never mentioned that in your book.” Beckett sounded either jealous or annoyed. Or both. Castle couldn’t be certain - it wasn’t as if she could use that in her day job, after all. Not legally, at least.

“I don’t give away all of our tricks. And it’s more a ‘detect lies’ spell than a truth spell,” he explained. “And not many can cast it. Outside D&D games, at least.” That earned him a snort. And a glare from Buffy.

“Be quiet, Willow has to focus!” the blonde Slayer hissed. Quite a bit a louder than either Rick’s or Kate’s comments, to be honest. Not that he’d tell her that. Or ask why a witch with Willow’s power would have to focus that much for a single spell. He just wanted it over with.

Finally, Willow and Dawn, who acted as a translator, stood up and came over to the group. “They didn’t know exactly what the demons were planning, but they were not opposed to getting some supernatural boost. The demons turned on them two days ago, or so they say.”

“After Marconi was arrested,” Castle said, nodding. As he had expected.

“Probably.” Dawn shrugged. “Lethe’s?”

“Lethe’s.” Willow and Buffy nodded.

“Lethe’s?” Beckett asked.

“Lethe’s Bramble. A magical flower used for mind control and memory modification spells,” Dawn explained. “They’ll not remember anything.” She looked at Lisa, who hadn’t let go of Beckett’s hand yet. “You can forget all of this too, if you want.”

The girl gaped at her, then shook her head.

“Are you sure? You’ll have nightmares about this. I know, I’ve been there myself.”

“Dawn’s got a lot of experience being kidnapped,” Buffy said. “We didn’t let her go out of the house by herself until she had turned twenty.” The blonde nodded sagely. “And I still think we should have waited a bit longer.”

“Buffy!”

“What? I care about my little sister.” Buffy grinned.

Dawn glared at her, then turned back to Lisa. “We’ll get you a good psychologist then. Someone who knows about demons and won’t think you’re crazy.”

“Yep. Trust me, loonie bins are no fun.” Buffy stood up. “All done, Wills?”

“Yes. They’ll wake up in an hour, and won’t know what happened.” The witch sounded more tired than after the battle. Maybe those spells took more effort than Castle had thought.

“Good. We can drop some drugs around them, and make them think those are responsible,” Faith added.

“That won’t fool a cop,” Beckett said.

“It will,” the Slayer said. “Cops don’t like to think about things outside their narrow world view. If they hear about missing memories, and see drugs near them, they’ll blame the drugs. If they even get involved.”

Beckett looked like she wanted to argue, then clenched her teeth and frowned.

“Hey, Faith, help us put the sleepyheads on the pallet here!” Buffy yelled from where she was trying to stack the unconscious people next to the seal.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” Faith yelled back, then suddenly grinned at Castle and Beckett. “Want to get on it as well? You’d not have to walk then.”

Rick would rather walk than get too close to the seal. He shook his head. “No, thanks. We’re not that badly wounded.”

“But worse than last night. I’ll need more of that magical ointment, and even so, Will might notice,” the detective said.

“Oh.” Castle pondered this. “We’ll need an excuse.”

“We could arrange a car accident,” Vi said. “Your car’s cheap and expendable,” she added with a smile at Beckett.

“No,” the detective hissed in response.

“Claiming we both fell down the stairs is a bit clichéd. More than a bit, actually. Isn’t it code for spousal abuse?” Castle said.

“We’re not claiming that we both fell down stairs,” Beckett said.

“Well… we could have slipped in the bathtub. Together!” Castle said, grinning.

“We’re not claiming that either. I don’t want my co-workers to think I’m stupid enough to risk my neck during sex.” Beckett was glaring now.

Rick didn’t think mentioning that they already thought that after her last excuse would be a good idea. “I think the stairs are the best option then,” he said instead. “We can claim a drunk idiot stumbled into us and pushed us down.” He smiled at her. “Perfectly reasonable and harmless. Could have happened to anybody.”

Beckett stared at him, then pressed her lips together and slowly nodded. “I don’t like it…”

“... but you don’t have a better idea, right?” Castle grinned widely. “Trust us, simple deceptions are the best way to handle this.”

“That won’t fool Will forever,” Beckett shook her head.

“What won’t fool me? Or rather, what is fooling me right now?” Willow asked.

“Wrong Will, Willow. We’re talking about the annoying federal agent you’ve all met.”

“Oh, him!” Willow pouted. “That guy.” She obviously didn’t like being mistaken for Stalkerson. Castle understood that - he’d rather not be mistaken for the Fed either.

He grinned. “Yes. Although I think we need another name for him, so we won’t confuse you again. How about ‘Agent Annoying’? ‘That foolish Fed’?”

Beckett was glaring at him again, though then she smiled, if a bit ruefully, and shook her head. “You’re quite like the rest of them, you know.” She nodded at the Scoobies arguing about how to best stack unconscious people on top of each other.

“Please! I’m far older and far more mature!” Rick protested.

Beckett didn’t have to laugh at that quite as loudly, he thought, but then, they all needed a laugh.

*****

 


	18. Cleaning Up

**New York, October 2009**

“Until I started fighting demons, I didn’t really notice that your books do not mention just how much you hurt after such a fight.”

Rick Castle narrowed his eyes as he looked at the detective, who was walking in front of him with Lisa, as they slowly made their way back to the surface. Which was a phrase that sounded far too much like a line out of a D&D novel to use in his own work, he noted. “In my defense, dwelling overly long on convalescence scenes, apart from the usual bedside visit after the victory, was discouraged by my editor.” And by everyone else - even Rupert.

“So this was not by design, to avoid scaring prospective demon hunters off?”

He couldn’t see her face, but her tone was light, joking. She really was fitting in with the Scoobies, he thought, and snorted. “No! We don’t exactly want amateurs hunting demons, and we want amateurs hunting demons thinking that it’s easy and safe even less.” Which, seeing as how the Scoobies all started as amateurs, including Buffy, was kind of hypocritical. But they also knew just how dangerous it was, of course, and didn’t want anyone else to experience what they had gone through. Although apparently Alexis didn’t count as an amateur.

“You didn’t exactly try to deter me.”

“I rarely attempt anything I know is impossible,” Rick said. Behind him, Vi started to cough loudly. “Apart from trying to teach my Slayer basic manners, of course.”

“Hey!” Vi protested, while Beckett chuckled.

“See? Eavesdropping is impolite.” He slowly shook his head, sighing loudly. “I try, and try, but it’s hopeless…”

“Hey!”

A sudden crash from up ahead, and loud curses interrupted further banter. Apparently, navigating a pallet truck through the sewers was not quite as simple as it looked, even for Slayers.

“Willow!”

“I told you Buffy: I’m not going to float the seal all the way.”

“But I just ruined my boots in this muck!”

“Then you have nothing more to lose. Stop bothering Willow for petty reasons!”

“Dawn! Says the girl who wanted her to enchant her leather jacket so it’d have air conditioning!”

“I was seventeen at the time and that’s not a petty reason! It’s needed for any trek through a desert!”

“You were studying in London.”

“I could have been called off for an emergency translation in egypt any day!”

“There’s e-mail and scans for that these days!”

“B! Stop feuding with your little sister and grab the other side!”

“Oy! What about me, Slayer? I’m the one getting pushed in the muck here!”

Castle was distracted from following the most recent episode of ‘Days of our Slaying Lives’ by Beckett’s comment: “You know, it’s actually comforting to listen to them bickering. If they are acting like teenagers, it means we’re safe.”

“Well…” he started to say.

“It’s not exactly a perfect indicator,” Xander, who had dropped back from the mess at the head of their little column, smart of him, Castle thought, cut in. “They also bicker when things are really bad.” He shrugged. “But I don’t think the demons left will try anything. Not when we’ve received reinforcements, and they’ve lost most of their force.”

“And,” Rick said, “we have three Slayers and one Willow here. If they are bickering, then they are ready to deal with a lot of demons.”

“I’m not bickering!” Vi protested.

Xander coughed, then smiled at Beckett. “Anyway. I would like to officially welcome you to the stock human vampire hunter association.”

“What?” Beckett jerked.

“Hey! No poaching! I’ve already recruited her for the New York Watchers!” Castle glared at the younger man. Even if he was joking, there were some lines you didn’t cross.

Xander laughed. “More seriously, how are you holding up? You were hurt before we met up.”

“We’re not about to collapse on you,” Beckett said.

Castle nodded. He wasn’t quite certain if the detective simply didn’t want to get carted around - after the third time the pallet truck had a little accident, he thought it would be safer and less painful to crawl if needed rather than sit down on that - but he wasn’t about to contradict her. “Yes. We’ll be feeling this in the morning, but we’re fine.”

“Fine or F.I.N.E.?” Xander asked, then, chuckling, made his way back to the now-moving pallet truck before Beckett caught the joke.

Which reminded Castle that he still needed to get his gun back.

*****

“Ah… sweet smog of New York! How have we missed you!” Castle exclaimed when they finally left the tunnels. He’d probably have to burn his clothes, and not just because of the dried demon blood and whatever else it was. “Vi! Get the plastic sheets and the deodorisers from the trunk.”

“You know, Castle, if your car ever gets searched and a cop finds the weapons, and the plastic sheets, you’ll have to answer a few rather pointed questions,” Beckett said.

“I’ll point them at my hunting license, and the pictures taken from my trip to the Everglades.” Rick grinned.

“Did you think of that before or after you were searched for the first time?” Beckett raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, look, they got a van ready for the seal.” Castle pointed at where the Scoobies were manhandling - slayerhandling, to be precise - the seal into the car. “Although a white nondescript van is certainly not the most inconspicuous means to transport something. All the villains use them. Or black vans.”

“Not everyone thinks that life conforms to books, Castle.”

“Detective!” He put his hand over his heart. “Books - and, unfortunately for my author’s soul, movies and TV series even more so - do influence people. I bet that many people would think a white van is more suspicious than say… a purple party car.”

“Did you test that? It sounds oddly specific.” Beckett coked her head to the side. Lisa was still holding her hand, and hadn’t spoken a word in an hour.

“No.” It hadn’t been a real test, after all.

“Involuntarily.” Vi was there, grinning.

“Frumpy. Dumpy. Convent,” Castle said, glaring at her. They had agreed to never speak of that again!

“I’m silent like a grave!” Vi said.

“Which, given our experience, isn’t always that silent.”

“A graveyard is actually far more quiet than any flat in New York,” Spike cut in. “Even in Sunnydale, where there were more undead in graveyards than corpses, I never had to deal with loud neighbours as much as in London.”

“That’s because you killed your neighbours in Sunnydale,” Xander said.

“It was more like pest control. Damn fledglings thought they were Dracula, until I showed them otherwise.” Spike grinned and pulled out a blood bag from his pocket, then cursed when he noticed that it had been punctured during whatever fight his group had been in.

“So, what happens with the seal now?” Beckett said.

“It’ll be transported to a safe place,” Castle said. “Archived with proper documentation, so our descendants will know what it is, and how to deal with any trouble.” There wouldn’t be any forgotten relics in the Council’s archives on Rupert’s watch. With a grin, he added: “Imagine the final scenes from Indiana Jones!”

“I’d rather not imagine that there are that many dangerous magical artifacts around, thank you,” Beckett said dryly.

Castle nodded. “Understandable.”

“That was your cue to tell me that there aren’t that many dangerous magical artifacts, Castle.”

“Ah… I would love to, Detective, but I think you also didn’t want me to lie to you, so…” Castle said.

Beckett used a few Russian curses Castle wasn’t familiar with yet. He hoped he’d be able to sneak them past his editor in the next novel.

*****

Two hours later, everyone was back in Castle’s apartment, showered and with their wounds treated. Castle had turned out to be ‘just bruised’. Given how quickly his family and friends had turned from ‘you’re hurt! Let us help you’ to ‘you’ll be fine then’, he wasn’t quite certain if he should be glad nothing was broken.

He was glad that Beckett wasn’t seriously hurt, of course. The woman was sitting in the most comfortable armchair he had, watching as the Slayers went through the mountain of pizza and other take-out food Alexis, bless her diligent, responsible mind, had ordered as soon as she had heard they had been victorious.

“You said you could wipe the memories of the other victims.”

Castle tensed. He knew what she was about to say. “You want to use it on Marconi?”

She looked at him. “You wouldn’t have to kill him.”

He shook his head. “Even if we could remove everything we needed from his memory - that would need a thorough interrogation, which I doubt we could do while he’s under guard - that kind of memory loss would be investigated, since his lawyers would insist. And I’d rather not let everyone know that their memories can be removed - or even altered.”

“You’d have a man killed for that?”

“No. But I’d have a man killed for working with demons against humanity.” Marconi deserved death. He took a deep breath - which hurt his ribs - and added: “Besides, things have been dealt with already.”

“What?” She stared at him.

Castle wasn’t about to go into details. She was a cop, after all.

Beckett must have realised that, since she scoffed, and looked away.

“You saved a lot of lives today,” Rick said after a moment.

“I’m a cop; it’s what I do. What I chose to do.”

That sounded more than a bit bitter, but Castle didn’t think it would do much good to revisit the topic of how to deal with humans working with demons. Instead he offered her a drink.

Sooner or later, Beckett would come around. You only could discover so many dead people, dead children, until you stopped feeling sorry for the scum who helped demons.

Those were rather gloomy thoughts for a victory party, as Buffy had called it, though. So Castle grinned. “We still need to make certain that our stories match, you know.”

“Stories?”

He pointed at his back. “The cover for our bruises, remember?”

“Ah. Good idea.” She nodded.

“So, what do we tell Agent Snooperson about our sex life? I’ve got a few ideas already!” He leaned forward, smiling widely, while she gaped at him.

“What?”

“I’m just planning ahead!”

“I bet you are!”

She didn’t glare at him. Much. He was making progress!

*****

**New York, October 2009**

_The demon roared, baring fangs the size of her thumb. Claws extended from its hands and blood-red eyes glared at her. She shot it, right between the eyes, but the monster wasn’t hurt. She pulled the trigger again and again, the bullets bouncing off the creature’s thick skin as it slowly closed in on her, it’s mouth opening wider and wider, a forked tongue slithering between the pointed teeth. She ducked under the first swing, but a clawed foot caught her in the stomach, throwing her back against the wall, her breath knocked out of her. Dazed, she could only watch as the demon raised its claws again, unable to dodge the next swipe..._

Detective Kate Beckett woke up with a scream, covered with sweat and panting. She was groping for her gun on a nightstand that wasn’t where it should be before she realised that it had just been a nightmare, not real. When she noticed that she was in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, she gasped again, then remembered she was in Castle’s bed. The bed in Castle’s guest room, she quickly corrected herself - all the innuendo from the Scoobies was corrupting her. She wondered briefly if she’d have had nightmares if she hadn’t slept alone, then buried that thought. It would take more than a warm body and arms wrapped around her to ward off nightmares after what she had seen last night. No matter how tempting it would be to try it. She could blame her nightmares… she shook her head.

Beckett let her head fall back on her pillow, ignoring the pain the sudden movement caused her. It was all Castle’s fault, of course. That cover story of them being lovers, the need to act like it in public… She sighed. She knew Castle would love for the act to be real. He was charming, brave, well-educated, kind, witty, passionate…

But he was also a very good actor, playing the role of an eccentric bestselling author while he hunted demons with superpowered girls and witches. What was an act, and what was his real self? She could trust him with her life - had trusted him with her life a few times now - but what about her heart?

And more importantly: Was he in love with her, or with the character he was creating in his books?

*****

“Morning,” Kate said, entering Castle’s kitchen.

“Ah, there you are! We were about to draw lots to see who’d have to brave your ire and wake you!” The author greeted her with a smile and a cup of coffee.

She accepted the coffee and took a sip. Just how she liked it. Will had never managed to make that. He hadn’t had an expensive Italian coffee maker, though. She took another sip, sighing.

“A new blend I just ordered. I take it you like it?” Castle asked, beaming at her.

“It’s... good,” she said.

“Only good?” He pouted. “I was assured by the vendor that it would be perfect! I’ve been swindled!”

She chuckled. “If I claim it’s perfect you might get complacent.”

“Two marriages have me taught better than that,” Castle said.

“Would your ex-wives confirm that claim?” She wasn’t quite certain that she wanted to talk about his past marriages, but she was too curious to change the topic.

“They’d not even admit that I exist, if not for the fact that we still work together,” Castle said. “If Congreve hadn’t been dead for three hundred years before Mary and Gina were even born, I’d suspect they were the source for his famous quote.”

“‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?” Kate asked.

He beamed at her. “Most think it’s from Shakespeare!”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you quizzing me?” Did he think she was some uneducated cop?

“No, no. Just making conversation. I blame my lack of finesse on my lack of coffee.”

She looked at his half-empty mug, then at him.

He smiled. “Well… I need more coffee than that, after the night we had.” He blinked. “That’s a good line! That’s so going into my next book!”

Kate stared while he grabbed a notebook and wrote it down, shaking her head. To think that she had seen the same man burning down demons just hours before...

She glanced at the food piled on the dinner table in the living room.

“Help yourself before the vacuum cleaners wake up!” Castle said.

Kate glanced at her watch. She usually ate breakfast on the way to work - a bear claw or a doughnut - but she was already late. And it would help her cover story. And let her talk to Castle without any supernaturally-powered eavesdroppers.

“Will you be tracking down the noose demon today?” she asked while filling a plate.

“That depends on whether or not we can get the blood sample. Willow should be up for it - it’s not exactly a difficult spell for her.”

“And how do you plan to get the sample?” Kate could get it, she thought. She had access to the evidence lockers, Lanie knew her too, and wouldn’t think it odd if she visited - and if she timed it right, her friend would be on a break, or distracted by a call… Kate realised that she was turning into a criminal. Castle was corrupting her!

“I’ll call Perlmutter.”

Of course! Perlmutter was routinely faking reports to conceal the existence of demons. He wouldn’t have any trouble - or scruples - to swap the blood sample. Heck, he probably did that anyway, to keep demon blood from showing up in a lab.

“You look disappointed,” Castle said, frowning at her.

“Ah, I blame my lack of coffee,” Kate said. “I was already planning a heist before I was reminded that you have the medical examiners on call.”

“Detective!” Castle sounded both surprised and delighted.

Kate hid her own smile by taking another sip from her coffee.

*****

“You’re late. Really late, not just on time.”

“And a good morning to you too, Will.” Apparently, the man had reverted back to jealous ex-lover over night.

Kate’s ex-boyfriend didn’t seem to let her remark faze him. Had he been so self-absorbed when they had been a couple, or was that the result of becoming a federal agent? “You never used to be late to work.”

She couldn’t resist. “I never used to have such a talented lover.” Kate smiled widely, sighed a little, and rubbed her shoulder, which still ached from the fight last night. “We didn’t get to sleep until very late last night.”

“Ohh! Details, Beckett, details!”

And she had missed Esposito approaching them, again. Turning to her colleague, she shook her head. “In your dreams, Esposito. I’m not about to kiss and tell.”

“You just did,” Will muttered.

He really was living up to Castle’s latest moniker for him, ‘Agent Annoyance’, Kate thought. She scoffed at him. “That was just a reminder that my private life is none of your business, since you seem to have forgotten that we’re not a couple anymore.”

“Kate! That man is hiding something!” Will hissed. “I got a call this morning, from Quantico. I was told to stop investigating him! Kate! He’s not a mere author!”

“What?” Esposito blinked.

Kate managed to curse. Will should have known better than blurt this out. Her friend was losing it, it seemed. Or, she suddenly thought, he had wanted her colleagues to know this. “Just because other federal agents are willing to tell you to stop abusing your power to investigate my boyfriend instead of working on your case doesn’t mean that there’s something more going on than Castle having friends with some influence. And we already knew that the Mayor is a fan of him.”

“The FBI doesn’t answer to New York’s mayor,” Will said.

He was digging in, she realised. He wouldn’t let this go. “He’s not the only fan of Castle. And as a famous author and father of a teenager, my boyfriend is quite concerned about his private life staying private - a concern many other people share.”

“And how many authors have a ‘bodyguard’ like that girl?”

“She’s got a name,” Esposito said. “Vi.”

Will ignored the detective. “And how many authors and their bodyguards come out of a shootout with a dozen mafiosi without a scratch? They were not even fazed, Kate!”

“Castle has the money to spend on the best,” Kate said. She briefly pondered mentioning that the parents of his ex-wife had been killed by terrorists, but that would just make her boyfri… Castle appear even more suspicious.

“You know what he is hiding!” Will accused her.

“Yes - his private life. Of which I am a part. And you are not.” Kate said. She smiled at him, showing her teeth. “Stop acting like a stalking ex, Will!”

“Marconi is dead.”

“What?” She looked at him, glad she didn’t have to fake her surprise. When had Xander…?

“Heart attack, according to the preliminary report from the medical examiner,” Will said.

“You don’t sound like you believe it.”

“He tries to kill Caste, and then conveniently dies before we can interrogate him.” Will was looking at her as if she had pulled the trigger.

“Wasn’t he under guard?”

“Yes.” Will pressed out.

“Two uniforms?”

“Yes.”

“So, are you trying to tell me that Castle somehow snuck into the hospital, past the two cops standing at the bed of the man, and killed Marconi with a fake heart attack?” Kate scoffed.

“Not him. Her.”

“Vi?” Kate shook her head. “Now she’s not just a bodyguard, but an assassin? And an assassin good enough to kill a man under guard? Without leaving any traces the investigation will uncover?”

Will glared at her. He had to know just how ridiculous this sounded, Kate knew that. But he was right-  it had been murder. Or an execution, as Castle called it. It didn’t matter. Will would not let this rest. In his place, she wouldn't let it rest either.

The special agent shook his head and walked away.

Kate sighed. Then she saw Esposito’s expression. “What?” she snapped.

“Vi could do it, couldn’t she?”

“No.” Beckett shook her head. “She could get to Marconi, and kill him. But without getting noticed, and without leaving traces? No.”

Esposito nodded, but she could tell that he wasn’t convinced either.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Hold the door!”

Kate Beckett, heading out to lunch, saw Esposito hurry towards the elevator. For a moment, she considered pushing the button to close the doors. She didn’t want to deal with her fellow detective right now. But that would just make things worse. So she waited, though frowning, until the man stepped into the elevator.

The doors had barely closed when he started: “So, your boyfriend has friends in very high places.”

“He’s rich, and famous,” Kate said.

He ignored her annoyed tone. “In very different places. The Feds, the Mayor, the British government…”

“He lived in England for ten years. His first wife is from the British Upper Class. Which still means something over there.”

She could tell that he wasn’t buying it. “Enough to get the ex-husband diplomatic immunity ten years after the divorce?”

“What’s your point?” She didn’t quite glare at him, but she saw him flinch and lose his smile, before he straightened up.

“Look, Castle and Vi have a secret, and you know it. It’s nothing illegal, or you’d have arrested him yourself. And the Feds wouldn’t protect him against their own if it was illegal. Too risky with people like your ex.” He took a deep breath. “I just… I want to know. I want in.”

“In?” Kate drew the word out a bit.

“Sorenson might be your ex, but I’ve been working with you for years. You’re not just sleeping with Castle, you’re working with him on… whatever he and Vi do. Marconi was no accident.” He sighed. “I don’t want to be the outsider.”

Kate could understand that, but… he wasn’t there with Ryan, his partner. She sighed. “You think this will give you a better chance with Vi.”

His expression was answer enough.

“It’s not my secret to tell.”

“But you’ll ask?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. She’d dump this on Castle. After all, he had decided to get involved with a cop, he should have known this would happen.

Further conversation was stopped by the elevator doors opening. She shook her head. She wasn’t even sleeping with the man, and he still managed to complicate her entire life pretty much daily.

*****

That afternoon Agent Clapton, Will’s partner, called Kate, Ryan and Esposito to him. “We’ve received a report of a missing persons case that might be related to the serial killer. Four people went missing yesterday, all of Russian descent, two of them acquaintances of the murdered family. They were found today, near a hospital. All claim to not remember anything.“

“A likely story,” Esposito said.

“I don’t know any drug that would cause that,” Kate added. It wasn’t even a lie - magic potions didn’t count as drugs.

“According to the investigating officers, their stories remained consistent,” Clapton said.

Ryan frowned. “That’s not really hard if you claim to not remember anything.”

“Yes.” The federal agent nodded.

“Is that the only link to our case?” Kate asked.

“No. The hospital found rope marks on two of them. They were tied up, and struggled. They might be covering something up, but we don’t know what. Did they see the killer? Did they make a deal to be spared?”

“Let me guess: That’s our job to find out?” Esposito asked.

Clapton nodded. “Here are the room numbers of the four.”

Kate took the slip of paper. She really hoped that Willow’s potion worked well - those four had seen her last night, and were unlikely to forget her face, given what they had gone through.

Another worry for her.

*****

As his text had told her an hour ago, Castle was waiting for her when she left the precinct, leaning against his Shelby in a pose straight out of a car magazine. His face lit up in a smile that made him look ten years younger when he spotted her. “Kate!”

“Castle.” She wasn’t angry, but she had spent an afternoon either worrying that the four former kidnapping victims would recognise her - fortunately they didn’t - and trying to avoid Esposito and Will, and later Ryan. “Did you study that pose?”

He pouted. “It’s supposed to look casual and spontaneous.”

“Well, Castle, it looks like you’re trying too hard. It makes you look like a poser.”

His pout grew more pronounced, and she had to chuckle. Then he had that glint in his eyes, and opened his arms to hug her. And in front of the precinct, she couldn’t really refuse him, could she? And she better made it look good; her cover story was already wearing thin.

Being in his arms felt nice. He smelt nice as well. She wondered if he’d try to kiss her - for their cover. And how she’d react.

“Agent Solong is watching.”

She tensed, then nodded. “Let’s go then.” She wouldn't kiss Castle just to make a point with her ex.

Once the Shelby was pulling away from the precinct, she sighed. “We’ve got a problem.”

“We do?” Castle sounded less surprised than she had thought. Then again, he probably was used to having problems.

“Will’s superiors have told him to stop looking into your past. He hasn’t taken it well.”

“Ah. If Agent Jealouson doesn’t follow orders, he’ll probably get transferred to somewhere else. Does the FBI have a bureau in Alaska?”

She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but rolling her eyes was an appropriate response either way. “I doubt that will stop him. He seems rather obsessed.”

“With me or you? I mean in two completely different senses of the word, of course,” Castle said. “Not that I don’t understand him,” he added, smiling at her. “You’re pretty obsession-worthy.”

She chuckled. “That line can be seen as rather creepy, Castle.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “But you know how I mean it - in the roguishly handsome way, not the creepy stalker way. I’ll leave that to federal pretty boys.”

“Will? A pretty boy?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well…” he drawled, “He’s certainly rather young. And he’s not ruggedly handsome. That’s taken by me. Which means he’s stuck with the pretty boy role.”

“Castle, I know it must be a shock for you, but life’s not a novel.”

He sighed. “Sometimes, it comes far too close.”

She was reminded once again that for all his often childish antics, Castle had lived through things that she would have thought were purely fictional a few months ago. He didn’t show it that often. After a moment, she went on: “Esposito ‘wants in’, as he puts it. He knows you’re hiding something, and he is quite sure that it’s nothing illegal.”

“He wants to hunt demons?” Castle sounded surprised. “He didn’t strike me as the type to believe in such things.”

“He doesn’t. He has no idea what you are doing - just that it’s secret, covered up by two governments, and that involves Vi.”

“Ah!” Castle nodded. “Cherchez la femme! It all makes sense now!”

She didn’t react to the banter. Esposito was a good detective. She had been where he was, a few months ago. Although unlike him, she hadn’t been motivated by a crush. Well, only marginally, at most.

Castle grew serious quickly. “Well… do you trust him?” He kept glancing at her, she noticed.

Did she trust him? With her life when they were at work, yes. But with keeping Castle’s secret? Esposito knew better than to make fun of her love for Castle’s books, but she knew that he wasn’t interested in Fantasy, or the supernatural. And he wasn’t exactly that religious either. “I don’t know how he’ll handle demons.”

“He’s a former soldier,” Castle said, focusing on traffic again. “They’re usually quite good at handling such things. The old council used to recruit a lot of veterans.”

“Used to?”

His wry smile lacked any humour. “That was before the Slayers multiplied. There was just one, later two Slayers. Normal humans had to pick up the slack.” He snorted. “They recruited a lot of veterans, but there were never that many veterans on the payroll at any given moment.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Things changed. We don’t lose that many people anymore. But we still take losses. Slayers, Watchers…” he turned his head and looked at her for a moment.

She knew what he meant. “If I had trouble risking my life to protect the people, I would not have become a cop.”

He nodded, then snorted. “Well, we’ll have to ask Vi. It’s her fault, so it’s her responsibility.”

“Do you blame her for him falling for her?”

“No. I mean, if I was younger, not in love with someone else, and not her Watcher, I would probably fall for Vi as well - she’s a great girl. A girl who deserves better than risking her life each night to hunt demons.”

Castle shouldn’t be looking that wistful, Kate thought. Though he had said he was in love with her as well.

“But,” Castle continued, with a snort, “she’s the one constantly flirting with him. So, she has some responsibility.”

“You’re constantly flirting with me,” Kate pointed out.

He nodded with a broad smile. “Yes, I am. And I’m fully prepared to take any responsibility resulting from said flirting. Just give the word!”

Kate Beckett was at a loss for words. Was he serious? And if he was, what did he mean? She didn’t know and she couldn’t ask. So she chickened out, as Lanie would say. “In your dreams, Castle!”

“Oh, definitely.” His grin grew even wider.

And she remembered her own dreams.

*****

 


	19. Relationships

**New York, October 2009**

Violet ‘Vi’ O’Malley was handling the news with the maturity and understanding Rick Castle had come to expect from his Slayer when it came to such matters.

“Hah! Men are willing to risk their lives fighting demons for me!” The redhead was grinning widely while she piled a third helping on her plate. Rock was looking forward to again spending less than a Football team’s worth of food per meal once the Scoobies returned to England.

“One man, and he doesn’t know that demons exist, so he doesn’t know that he’s risking his life,” Alexis said. Rick could always count on his responsible daughter to help him deal with Vi’s ego.

Vi snorted. “He suspects that we are secret agents, so he is willing to risk his life for me!”

“You know that men in love act like idiots.” Alexis shook her head, sighing.

“Hey!” Castle protested. “As a man myself, I have to point out that this is slander.”

“I’d say it’s based on empirical evidence,” Dawn said, gesturing with her fork. “After observing Buffy’s boyfriends. Then again, they were in love with my sister, so...”

“So what?” Buffy asked in a flat voice.

“... so they were far too close to me for an unbiased judgement?” Dawn finished, grinning.

The blonde Slayer glared at her, then scoffed. “Anyway, the real question is not if he’s acting stupid, but if he can handle the truth.”

“After all, some of the best demon hunters joined the fight in an attempt to impress a woman,” Willow added, smiling at Castle and Xander.

“So, can he?” Buffy asked, looking straight at Beckett.

The detective sighed. “I don’t know. Finding out that magic exists, that demons exist… that’s bound to turn anyone’s worldview on its head.”

“Well, he was a soldier and was in a war. He already had to deal with the horrors of war, and if that didn’t break him, he can probably handle it,” Xander said.

“He was in Iraq, not Vietnam,” Dawn said.

“Same experience,” Xander said. “I was in the sandbox in 2004 with Riley, for the Temple of Doom.”

“It was a ziggurat, not the Temple of Doom,” Willow corrected him.

“Close enough,” Xander said, between bites.

“Well, even if we don’t think he can handle it, could we stop him from finding out?” Willow asked. “And what about Agent Sorenson?”

Rick wanted to correct her pronunciation of Agent Bothersome’s name, but restrained himself. “I spoke with our contact at Quantico. He’ll have the man reassigned if he doesn’t comply with his orders.”

“That won’t really stop him. This is personal for Will,” Beckett said. “And if Esposito is in, his partner will sooner or later find out as well.”

“Looks like you’re forming your own Scooby Unit,” Xander said, grinning at Castle.

“You could call it a ‘Scrappy Unit’,” Dawn added. “I charge less royalties than Xander.”

“We already had a Scooby Unit.” Alexis folded her arms. “We’re just expanding the roster.”

“We haven’t yet decided on anything,” Rick pointed out. “And we’re not taking Agent Snooperson.” That would be a really bad idea. There wasn’t enough room for both of them in one city. Even one as big as New York.

“We have to deal with him, though.” Beckett shook her head. “He will not give up otherwise.” With a glare at Rick, she added. “And by ‘dealing’, I don’t mean wiping his memories or worse.”

Rick laid his hand on his chest. “Perish the thought! I’d never even think of such a thing.” Far too simple, after all. In his next book, he’d turn the man’s expy into a dog, probably. A clumsy, slobbering dog annoying Nikki Heat until she sent him to the pound to get fixed…

“Dad! No spacing out!” Alexis’s voice ended his brief fantasy.

“What about using the Secret Agent cover for the pig? The Federal pig, not the local one,” Spike asked. Castle had ignored the vampire, despite the noise he had made sucking from his blood bag, but that actually was a good idea!

“Would that even work?” Faith asked.

“Well, the detective here thought we were the Avengers, and she’s smarter than the Fed,” Vi said. Her tone was not quite as complimentary, though, and the smile she sent at the detective was a bit too wide.

His Slayer was playing dominance games again. It had to be the proximity of Buffy and Faith, Castle thought. He quickly said: “It can be done. It’s what people expect when they notice us. It won’t be hard to fool such a rigid mind.”

“And what about the other guy? The other guys?”

“Buffy means Esposito and Ryan,” Dawn added, not so helpfully.

“Esposito wants in, so I guess claiming we’re secret agents won’t work,” Rick said.

“It won’t,” Beckett said. “Since I’m obviously involved, he’ll not accept that he can’t be involved.” The detective was glaring at Vi as if that was her fault.

“So we’ll recruit him, or them. Can I do the speech?” Xander said, smiling.

“No you can’t!” Buffy said. “The last time you did the speech, the guy wanted to shoot you.”

“He wanted to shoot me before I even had started the speech!” the young man defended himself.

“See? You’re obviously not suited for that.” Buffy nodded.

“You’re just too shootable, Xander,” Faith said, chuckling. The Slayer had finished her own meal, and was flipping a throwing knife around in her hand.

Xander pouted, but the rest of the Scoobies nodded.

“It has to be done by a stuffy, old Watcher,” Buffy said. “It’s tradition.”

“We don’t have a stuffy old Watcher,” Rick pointed out. Then he noticed that everyone was smiling or chuckling at him, even Beckett, and Alexis was rolling her eyes.

*****

“I’m not old, nor stuffy.”

He wasn’t, Rick knew. He was the very opposite of old and stuffy. Well, of stuffy. Age was creeping up on him - but only on his body. And even there...  “I still would be too young to become a Roman Consul!” That required a minimum age of forty-two.

He thought it was a compelling argument, but his Slayer, driving the Shelby again, chuckled. “Trying to use such an argument is proof that you’re old!”

He turned his head to get Beckett, who was sitting on the back bench, to support him, but the woman was grinning at him. “She’s correct, Castle.”

“See? Beckett would know, being old as well!” Vi said.

The grin on the detective’s face turned into a frown, and Castle turned away so she wouldn't see his smile. She must have heard him snort, though, despite his best efforts, so he changed the topic. It was a boring topic anyway. It wasn’t that he was opposed to doing the speech - telling people that the world was older than they thought never got old - but to think he was considered the best stand-in for Rupert… it was probably a compliment. He cleared his throat. “Let’s focus on catching our lynching demon!”

“That’s what we have been doing,” Vi said, “while you were dealing with your midlife crisis.”

Castle told himself that for a Watcher, being old enough for others to mistakenly assume he was having a midlife crisis was a great feat. He sighed.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the location Willow’s spell had picked out.

“Yes! First!” Vi pumped her fist. Then she started cursing when she spotted a familiar bike parked around the corner.

“Did you honestly expect to outrace Faith on a bike?” Castle asked, shaking his head.

“You turned this into a race?” Beckett asked from behind them in a clipped tone.

“We can’t let the demon escape,” Vi said. “We don’t have enough blood to redo the spell multiple times.”

Buffy’s rental pulled in behind them. The blonde was scowling as she stepped out of the car, and Vi’s mood brightened.

Castle sighed. Slayers! He turned to Beckett. “Let’s guard the rear entrance.”

“You’re not storming the house?” Then detective noticed the three Slayers already charging ahead, Buffy kicking the door open while Faith went through the window  - the window barred with wooden boards, of the first floor - and Vi was heading to the back. “Ah.”

“Yes,” Rick said, gripping a shotgun and loading it with beanbag rounds. The demon would have to be bound by burying the corpse in a casket with sealing runes inlaid with silver in the lid and a noose with silver threads in the hemp around the neck, and that would be a tad difficult if it lost its head. “It’d be more dangerous to try and get between them and their prey than to fight the noose demon itself. Vi’s been chomping at the bit to kill it for weeks.”

Xander, stepping towards them and carrying a shotgun himself, nodded. “Slayers really like ‘the one that got away’ stories.”

“And they are sore losers!” Dawn chimed in. She was carrying a short-barreled shotgun. Nothing that would pass for a hunting shotgun, but it was easier to conceal. “Trust me, I grew up with Buffy. Never play a board game with her unless you are willing to let her win.”

“I think that’s more a quality of Summers girls,” Xander cut in.

Rick thought that that was a good moment to go and cover the rear of the building. Before he could say so, though, a crash sounded, and a body flew out of the window - of the second floor - and landed on the street with an ugly crunching sound.

“And there’s the demon-possessed corpse,” Xander said. “Notice the lack of screaming and yelling despite the fact that it must have broken several bones.”

Castle wasn’t about to let the young man outdo him. He started to walk towards the twitching corpse. “And take note of its attempt to move with said limbs.”

“Are you going to bag it or talk to it?” Dawn asked.

Castle exchanged a glance with Xander. No appreciation for humour! “We’ll wait for the Slayers - the thing is stronger than a human.” He didn’t want to end up with broken bones himself.

Xander nodded. “Oh, yes. They’ve got the brute force for that.”

The Slayers must have heard them since they later insisted that the two of them dug up Brighton’s grave without lifting a finger - Rick was certain that it didn’t take three Slayers to keep the possessed corpse bound with rope and extra-strength zip ties under control until the casket was ready.

But at least that was one demon bound and sealed off again. And Castle had proven that he wasn't old.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“I would have expected you to comment how this ending was rather anti-climatic by now.”

Rick Castle looked up from his laptop, where he was typing up the report of the sealing of the noose demon. Beckett was smirking at him, holding one of his crossbows in one hand. It occurred to him right then that their roles seemed to have been swapped - she was poking around in his office while he was trying to finish his work.

But it was a good question, and no one could say he could not take it as well as giving it. He grinned at her. “Oh, I never complain when it means less work for me.”

“I would have thought that it would make writing your next book harder.” The detective sighted the crossbow at the hellhound head mounted on his wall, then put it back on the wall.

“Oh, it doesn’t really make it harder. I never stay that close to the real events, or give too many actual details, lest our enemies gain information we don’t want them to have,” Castle said.

She frowned. “That means at least some demons know that you’re writing stories based on real events.”

“Oh, yes. Not all of them, but such things spread. I am a famous author, after all, and you’d be surprised how many demons like to read fantasy stories.” He smirked. “Although I think the fact that the demons tend to lose in most series offends them.”

“Didn’t anyone try to attack you? Or at least try to find out why you know so much about demons and Slayers?” Beckett had stopped fiddling with his various weapons, and was looking straight at him.

He shrugged. “I’m not exactly hiding. Vi and I did put the fear of the Slayer into the local demons, after all, and we weren’t wearing disguises. That would have been tacky.” Although a scarf, and a domino mask, and a hat… he shook his head. Vi would have never let him forget it. And the Scoobies… Well, Xander would have probably thought it was cool.

“You haven’t actually answered my question.” She was staring at him now. Not quite glaring, but clearly disapproving.

Rick sighed. There were disadvantages to dating, or courting, smart women. The advantages far outweighed them, of course. “Yes, I’ve been attacked, although not that often - the Council takes a dim view of demons attacking us, and we make quite impressive efforts to demonstrate that on anyone doing it. Vi’s a good bodyguard, though.” He chuckled. “It’s even sort of nice not to have to chase them down all the time.” When he saw her glare at him, he grimaced and spread his hands. “Sorry, that kind of humour tends to grow on you.”

“I was afraid of that,” she said, sitting down on the edge of his desk. Just like he used to do on hers. He wondered if that was deliberate or unconscious. And, he added to himself, it meant she was not about to stop hunting demons with him. “But what about your mother and daughter?”

And she had just called out the elephant in the room. He sighed deeply and leaned back in his seat. “We do what we can to keep them safe. Teach them how to spot demons, how to take precautions, to be security-conscious - we’d have to do that anyway, given my wealth and fame, we’re just adding supernatural threats to the mix.”

“And are Martha and Alexis heeding the advice?”

He almost glared at her, but it wasn’t her fault that his family was being so unreasonable.

Beckett snorted. “They won’t let you lock them up somewhere safe, hm?”

He shook his head. “Mother uses her career as an excuse, and Alexis has been wanting to become a Watcher since she was first told about demons.” And damn Mary for that! Five -year-olds were not supposed to be told that yes, there might be monsters under the bed!

“They’re your family.” She seemed oddly pleased.

“Alexis is supposed to be the responsible one in the family.” Wanting to become a Watcher wasn’t responsible. Why couldn’t she have gotten a tattoo instead, for her teenage rebellion? But it was a done deal. He had accepted that. That didn’t mean he had to like it, of course.

“She is.” The woman chuckled.

Rick pouted at her. But he had walked straight into that one. “You haven’t been wearing a mask yourself.”

“I’m also not a famous bestselling author.”

She didn’t have to say this as if that was a bad thing, Castle thought. “But you’ll be famous too.”

“What?” She snorted. “And how, please would I end up famous?”

Castle didn’t mention that if they started dating officially her pictures would be plastered over the yellow press society pages and several blogs. He didn’t want to appear as if he was presuming something, Even if he was, and with good reason. “You’re the muse and role model for my next book. Have you forgotten our dear friendly reporter, Miss Varshney?”

“Didn’t she tell you to call her ‘Jane’?” Apparently, Beckett hadn’t forgotten nor forgiven the reporter.

“I don’t always do what I’m told.” Rick shrugged. He knew better than to appear too friendly with the reporter, given Beckett’s obvious dislike of her. “But her article’s just the start. Have you looked into the comments on my forum?”

“Do you honestly think I read your forums? She chuckled, but to Castle, it sounded a bit forced.

He narrowed his eyes, then grinned. “Why, yes, I do think so. I believe that if I had Willow investigate my oldest and most active fans, I’d discover a username belonging to you, Miss ‘Beckett, with two ‘t’s at the end’.”

She was actually blushing! He smiled widely. “So… you know what my fans are writing.”

“Yes. And you need better moderators, Castle. Some of those posts are crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed.”

He blinked. “That bad? A few were jealous of you, as I recall, but that settled down last I knew.” It wasn’t as if he checked the forum every day. At most, every second day.

“I’m talking about the speculation and stories that claim we’re a couple, Castle,” Beckett said. She was glaring at him as if that was his fault.

“Well… that’s a very easy assumption to make,” Rick said, smiling at her.

“Are you insinuating that you’re so attractive, any woman spending time with you would fall for you?” She had her arms crossed now, frowning, but it looked a bit too defensive to him.

He stood up and started to walk around his desk. He saw her tense up, but she remained sitting on his desk. Standing up would have been giving ground, and Beckett was too stubborn for that. “No, I’m not.” He was ruggedly handsome, witty and charming, and rich too boot, but that didn’t mean all women would fall for him, given the chance. Just a lot. “But,” he said, “I think you’re far closer to ‘falling for me’ than you want to admit, Detective.” He was standing in front of her, so close, he’d just have to move his leg a little bit to touch hers.

“And on what facts do you base that entirely mistaken assumption, Castle?” She was meeting his eyes, raising her chin.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” He smiled. “You could be home already, sleeping. Or watching TV. Or reading. Or talking with the others.” She snorted. “With Alexis,” he said. She had a soft spot for his daughter. “But you’re here. In my office, fiddling with things you’ve seen before. Doing essentially nothing.” He leaned forward, bringing his face closer to hers and lowered his voice. “I know the signs. I’ve been doing the same, after all. You want to be with me.”

She wasn’t giving any ground, and she was lowering her voice as well. “You’re projecting.”

“But I’m not wrong.”

Her mouth was slightly open, but she wasn’t saying anything. Her tongue flicked over her lips. He licked his. He just had to lean forward a bit more and their lips would meet. He wanted her, had wanted her since he had seen her. And she wanted him. He was certain of that.

“Come on! Kiss already!”

Vi’s voice startled them both, and Castle took a step back while he turned around. There was his Slayer, and next to her, his daughter. Vi was shaking her head at him while Alexis had that sheepish expression on her face that told him that she was feeling very guilty for whatever she had done. Walking in on him, in this case.

He sighed. The moment was ruined. “I wasn’t aware that we had asked for an audience.”

Vi was, as expected, entirely unrepentant. “If you didn’t want an audience, maybe you should have closed the door before putting the moves on the detective. And in your office, even! I work here as well!”

“The door was closed,” Castle pointed out.

“Well, it wasn’t locked.” Vi shrugged.

“And why did you decide to enter anyway, instead of celebrating with the rest?”

“Ah… I wanted her help to get you to go to bed, instead of working too late, Dad,” Alexis said. Her smile looked more than a bit forced. “Sorry. I didn’t know that you weren’t working.”

“Right,” Vi said. “So… we’ll leave the detective to tuck you in. Good night!”

Castle didn’t have to look at Beckett to know she would do no such thing. Not now.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

Kate Beckett was sitting on the bed in her room - in Castle’s guest room, she corrected herself. She was rather annoyed, no, angry, with Vi. It wasn’t as if she had been sleeping with Castle, but it wasn’t any business of that Slayer. That was just between her and Castle. His family, which included that infuriating girl, had given her their blessing anyway, she reminded herself half-jokingly.

Not that it mattered. Kate wasn’t even quite certain whether she’d have kissed Castle, or pushed him away. No, that wasn’t quite true. She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed. She had been about to kiss Castle. Caught in the heat of the moment, she would probably have gone further than that. Castle certainly wouldn’t have stopped.

She smiled at that thought. The man had been after her ever since they had met for the second time. He had gone to quite length, too, to court her. She chuckled - she was now using the vocabulary from his medieval fantasy books.

In any case, it was very flattering, she had to admit to herself. Castle could have, well, not any woman he wanted, but there were not that many women who’d resist a rich, famous, handsome and charming man. A good father, even. Well, maybe she’d adjust that to ‘passable’.

Kate sighed. She wanted him, too. Wanted to jump his bones, as her father would say. Had for a while, too, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. Hadn’t wanted to be a groupie, or even worse, a golddigger. She clenched her teeth. She knew that that was what people would think about her, should she and Castle start to date. She had thought so herself about some of his past girlfriends after skimming the society pages of a magazine left in the break room. And she had read some of the comments on Castle’s forums, after that stupid article. Thank god she had never revealed her username.

The detective snorted. What went around came around, indeed. It would be worse this time, of course. It had just been speculation, back then. Mostly based on that picture, ‘The author and his muse’, and some suggestive lines written by that woman. Things had died down after a while, when she and Castle hadn’t been seen in public together, and had never confirmed the rumours.

She blinked. They recently had confirmed the rumours, at least as far as her colleagues were concerned. The other cops didn’t know it was just a cover story. And the news would spread. Sooner rather than later the newspapers would hear about it. And dig out all those old pictures and speculation.

“Damn.” She had to tell her father before he read about her and Castle in the newspaper. Or was informed by others, like his neighbour, Mrs. Brown. But what should she tell him? That it was all a cover story? He’d ask what the cover was for. And he’d worry. Well, she’d have to tell him about demons anyway. If something happened to him because he had remained ignorant of the dangers, or because some demon wanted to hurt her family… Kate shook her head. She couldn’t lose him. She had almost lost him to alcohol, after her mother.

But it wasn’t just a cover story. She was attracted to the man, no matter how infuriating he could be. Of course, after she had learned that demons and magic were real, she had seen many of his annoying antics in a new light. All those absurd, seemingly delusional theories were neither absurd nor delusional. Since then, she had seen the real Rick Castle. The Watcher. The father. The mentor. And she liked what she had seen. Very much.

So, why hadn’t she jumped his bones already? Just because she didn’t want others, people she didn’t know, to think she was a golddigger, or a fangirl? If she cared about what others thought, she wouldn't have joined the police. Was she just too stubborn for her own good?

Kate frowned. That was what Lanie had been telling her. Of course, Lanie didn’t know what was really going on. Which didn’t mean, though, that her friend was wrong.

She muttered a curse to the ceiling. She _was_ too stubborn, too proud for her own good. Like a character in some of those cheap romances she only read when she was caught on a flight without a real book. Well, she was about to become a character in a fantasy novel. A fantasy novel series. And people would speculate just how closely Nikki Heat mirrored herself. And it would be all Castle’s fault. His and that journalist’s.

Kate rolled on her stomach and stared at her pillow. None of that really mattered that much. In the end, all those problems were just excuses. What mattered was what she wanted. Well, she knew what she wanted. And she wasn’t the kind of woman who let others decide her life for her.

She stood up. She didn’t have many clothes in the guest room here. Just enough so she could change after a messy fight with demons. For a few days in a row. She sighed. She had been moving in for some time now. What she didn’t have here was lingerie. She had practical underwear, the sort no redhead could tease her about. The sort she didn’t really want to wear for tonight. The sleepwear she had was practical as well. Although… she glanced at the door and smiled.

*****

A few minutes later she was walking towards Castle’s bedroom. Halfway there, Vi appeared in front of her. She hadn’t heard or seen the Slayer move and jerked back before she could control herself.

Vi looked at her, at the thin and not too long bathrobe she was wearing, and frowned. “Are you taking a bath now?”

Kate met the Slayer’s eyes and smirked. “No.”

Judging by the redhead’s surprised expression, she understood what Kate meant. The detective smiled sweetly, nodded at her, and walked past.

Vi’s next words stopped her, though. “Are you doing this to prove something?”

“Hardly.” Kate snorted and turned around to look at her. “This has nothing to do with you. Or anyone else but Castle and me.”

Vi stared at her for a few moments, then slowly, almost reluctantly nodded. “I see.”

“Good.”

Kate turned away, but once again the Slayer spoke just when she was about to go on: “If you hurt him they’ll never find your body.”

Kate looked over her shoulder at the girl. “Shouldn’t you be polishing a shotgun while you say this?”

Vi chuckled. “I’m a Slayer; there’s no need for that.”

Kate shook her head and continued towards Castle’s bedroom, knocking on his door. Belatedly, she realised that she’d look rather silly if Castle was still in his office. Then she heard the muffled “Yes?” from inside. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and walked in.

Castle had been about to head to bed, already in his pajamas. He was standing there, next to his bed, as if he had been frozen, staring at her with an open mouth while she pushed the door behind her closed with her foot.

She saw him starting to smile, looking vulnerable for a second, before his smile widened. He opened his mouth, but she put a finger on her lips before he could say anything. Then she locked the door.

Turning back to him, she opened the belt holding her robe closed. He swallowed, then licked his lips.

Kate slowly pulled the robe open and let it slide down over her shoulders, to the ground. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

Castle took a deep breath himself, then, staring at her body while she slowly walked over to him. She had been a bit nervous, but seeing his expression, her confidence grew with each step she took, until she was standing in front of him, as close as she had been in his office.

She ran her hands over his chest, feeling his muscles under the thin top, then grabbed the back of his head while she felt his arms wrap around her nude body.

Their lips met and whatever doubts Kate had still been harboring vanished.

No one interrupted them this time.

*****

 


	20. The Reveal

**New York, October 2009**

Rick Castle woke up to a sight he had dreamed about for months: Kate Beckett, in his arms, asleep. In his bed too. And nude. And the night they had spent together… truly, his dream had not just come true but been exceeded. To think the proud detective would sneak into his room, at night, clad only in a short, thin bathrobe… that was something Nikki Heat would have done. Which meant, he thought with a smile, that he had judged Beckett’s character better than he had thought!

In that moment, the woman started to stir. He saw her slowly twist her shoulders, trying to stretch, and encountering resistance - his own chest, to be exact. Then her eyes opened, blinking. For a moment, she looked surprised, and he felt her tense and draw a sharp breath, then she must have remembered the night, and she relaxed - although not completely.

“Morning,” he said, in a low voice.

“Good  morning.”

“The best.” He smiled. “It was… “

“A dream come true?” She smirked, but he thought there was just the slightest bit of bravado there. Not that he minded.

“Oh, yes.” He grinned. “When you ripped my clothes off… that was straight out of a fantasy.”

Her eyebrows moved in that adorable expression she showed when she was confused. “I ripped your clothes off?”

Rick pointed at the crumpled remains in the middle of the carpet. “My pajama top.” His author colleagues would be so jealous - a beautiful woman had literally ripped his clothes off.

She actually got up and picked it up, then held it out. “Two buttons were ripped off,” She said, cocking her head sideways and raising an eyebrow.

He had been watching her nude body move, bend down, and so his retort was a few moments late. “It still counts! Buttons are parts of the clothes, and they were ripped off.”

“Technically.” She stared at him, then laughed.

He laughed as well. He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time. They had bound the noose demon, New York was safe from the cultists, and Kate Beckett had finally realised, no, admitted, that he was the ideal partner for her. Now if Agent Secondbest would be transferred to Alaska, this perfect morning would become a perfect day!

“Dad? Breakfast’s ready!” he heard Alexis through the door.

Beckett gasped, and quickly pulled the pajama top on to cover herself.

“Don’t worry, the door’s locked,” he said. “You locked it yourself.” Not that it would have stopped Alexis - his daughter had picked a really bad time to show, at last, some teenage rebellion by learning how to pick locks from that damned vampire. Even though he might not be damned any more, after regaining his soul. Or after having gained a new soul - Castle wasn’t privy to exactly what had happened.

Kate sighed with relief, then giggled. “That would have been embarrassing.”

Rick nodded.

She frowned. “You do not seem relieved.”

“Alexis only doesn’t come in to call me for breakfast if she knows I’m, ah, not alone. In bed,” he added.

She shrugged. “I met Vi on the way, last night.”

“Ah.” Rick hadn’t known that. He wanted to ask how the redhead had reacted, but that would make him look like he didn’t know his Slayer well enough to know, or guess her reaction.

“She told me that if I hurt you, they’d never find my body.” Kate snorted. “She’s very protective of you.”

“They all are.” Maybe a bit too protective - after Gina, there had been a few girls who had broken up with him quite surprisingly. One of them even moved to the West Coast without having an appartment ready, as he later was told by a shared acquaintance. “Did she mention a shovel?”

Kate shook her head with a slightly puzzled expression. “No, she didn’t.”

“It’s a multitool. You can use it to bash the head in, and then to hide the body,” he explained. “And in a pinch, you can stake a vampire with the shaft.” Xander had had to do that, once, when he had dug up a grave with suspicious markings, and the ‘corpse’ had turned out to be a vampire trapped by said markings.

“Your family has a slightly morbid touch. And a more than slightly violent one.” She chuckled, sitting down on the bed next to him. “Usually, I’m the one with the violent stories to tell.” She wasn’t quite looking at him.

“Mh.” She looked damn sexy, wearing just a shirt. His shirt. With the top two buttons ripped off. He was late with his answer, again. “It’s worse when you have to hide it. Can’t talk about your real work, and people start to think you’ve got an alcohol problem, as often as you end up ‘falling down the stairs’.” Gina had tried to use that against him, once.

“I better get back to my room, and my clothes,” Beckett said. “As much as I like your reaction, I think your family would take exception to me appearing like this at your table.” She ran her hand down her front, chuckling.

And Rick had a new fantasy. A new dream to become real.

Kate narrowed her eyes. “You’re not thinking to use this in your next book, are you?”

“I always change the details, as you know.” Of course he’d use it!

“And what kind of details would you change?”

“I’m not certain, yet.” Maybe he should replace the bathrobe with a trenchcoat, and have Nikki walk from her apartment to his?

“Why do I have trouble believing that?” She was not glaring at him, but grinning, amused. She was probably even closer to the character based on her than he had thought.

“Déformation professionnelle?” he ventured, smiling.

She snorted. “I think I know you a bit too well.”

“In the biblical sense now too!” he said.

They kissed, and Castle was tempted to skip breakfast. And maybe lunch. He was quite certain Kate was tempted as well, judging by how she looked when they separated again.

“Maybe…” she started, with an impish grin.

He shook his head. “It would likely result in a visit from Vi, ‘to check up’ on me.“ Even Alexis might grow concerned - although in her case, she might legitimately worry about him.

Kate frowned, and he shrugged. “It’s a Slayer thing. They are a bit… territorial.”

“Great. It’s the stepdaughter from hell.” The detective shook her head, snorting.

He perked up - even if she was joking, if she considered Vi her stepdaughter, then wouldn’t that mean she was at least thinking of him as husband-material? Then she stood up, and his shirt slipped some, and he was distracted again.

Until she opened the door, and found her clothes, neatly folded, in front of it.

When she turned around and looked at him, eyebrows raised, he shrugged. “Alexis is more subtle than Vi.” When she sighed, he added: “She’s trying to be helpful?”

He didn’t comment on her muttered “Great. A fifteen year old stepmother.”

*****

Breakfast was, as expected, a bit… wearing, was a good word. Alexis and Vi, even Martha, Rick could have handled without too much of a strain. But all the Scoobies? While he certainly didn’t regret anything that had happened, his day would have been even further improved if the Scoobies had taken the earliest flight back to merry old England.

“Who had ‘after we bag the noose demon’?” Xander asked, between taking large bites out of a croissant he had covered with a mix of honey and butter from his plate.

Dawn raised her hand, and Buffy groaned.

“How do you do this?” the blonde Slayer asked. “That’s the third time you’ve won the pool!” She was polishing off her third plate. Earlier, she had repeatedly complained that she wouldn't get a real breakfast in England, which had started an argument with Spike about what consisted a ‘real breakfast’. An argument the vampire had lost decidedly, on the grounds of both being English and a blood-drinking vampire, and therefore ignorant of the topic, as Buffy had declared.

“You were betting on when we would...” Kate’s voice sounded as if she couldn’t believe her ears. She seemed to even have forgotten the bear claw in her hand, halfway to her mouth.

“Yes,” Xander said, nodding. “It was so obvious, we mainly disagreed whether or not you’d do it during our visit, or after it.” He must have noticed the detective’s intent, since he hastily added: “Hey, we do that for everyone.”

“To everyone,” Dawn corrected him.

“Well… it’s sort of a welcome ritual?” Xander looked around.

“Hazing,” Dawn cut in again.

“Hazing is bad,” Willow said. “And it’s not really hazing. Just… good-natured teasing?”

“We’ll go with that!” Xander exclaimed. “Good-natured teasing. Willow nailed it again - she’s a genius, you know.”

While the Scoobies nodded to each other - Faith laughing openly - Rick consoled himself with the thought that compared to the Council, he was the epitome of maturity and wisdom.

“Anyway, enough of teasing the new old couple!” Buffy said. “Now let’s plan our next mission!”

“Next mission?” Kate asked, tensing up.

“Today’s shopping trip!” Buffy answered with a wide and - in Rick’s opinion - slightly manic smile.

He couldn’t wait to get to the precinct.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“The big bad demon hunter, running from a shopping trip.”

Rick Castle pouted at the amused tone of Kate’s voice and turned his head to look at the detective on the back bench. “I’ll have you know that better men than me have fled when Buffy mentioned thinking of going shopping.” He also made a mental note to look into cars that seated three up front - his neck would be grateful.

The detective’s chuckling told him that he needed to work on his delivery. Vi’s snort didn’t help either. Weren’t those two supposed to be at odds with each other, instead of ganging up on him? He sighed. “It’s not actually the shopping by itself that made me vacate my own premises before I was press-ganged, but the consequences of being dragged along by the Scoobies to pay for it.”

“I honestly doubt that they’ll put a dent into your bank account,” Kate said. “I didn’t have the impression that they were like that.”

“Well… not unless there’s a weapon convention. You know how Slayers are about all kind of weapons. Vi’s purchases alone would be enough to equip a small army.”

“Hey!”

He smiled at his Slayer. “You know, when Ray says that you’re putting his daughter through college, he is not quite joking?”

“I’m a Slayer, I need my weapons!” she huffed.

“Of course. Although I think a line should be drawn when their weight surpasses what you can carry.”

“Pf! Says the man ordering flamethrowers in bulk!”

“I’m just stocking up in case I lose another one.” Rick cleared his throat. “Anyway - since New York actually has not changed their weapon laws to emulate those of Texas…”

“Which they totally should!” Vi cut in. “I can’t carry my minigun with me due to those laws!”

“You don’t actually have a minigun, do you?” Kate didn’t sound amused anymore.

“No, she doesn’t,” Castle said.

“Sure I do!” Vi protested.

“It’s not yours, it’s the Council’s.”

“I called dibs!”

“That’s not how weapon procurement works,” Castle said. “Besides, that’s between you and Xander.”

“He said you vetoed it!”

Castle had a few nasty thoughts about the other Watcher throwing him under the bus, or the Slayer in this case. “In any case, it’s not a practical weapon.” It couldn’t fire Dragon’s Breath rounds, and the ammunition didn’t last long enough for most fights. And it was too mechanically complex for a good field weapon.

“But it’s fun! And you always tell Alexis to have more fun!” Vi pouted at him.

“Note, please, that I tell that to Alexis. Not to you.” Rick said. “And in light of the recent revelations about her extracurricular activities, I am sorely tempted to change that.” Turn his responsible daughter into a budding burglar, would they?

“Pf!”

Kate was shaking her head, her face showing a mixture of amusement and exasperation, as Castle saw glancing over his shoulder. He cleared his throat. “It’s not actually the financial consequences that I’m dreading, but the social ones.”

He resisted the temptation to shake his head and sigh at the blank looks from both Kate and Vi. “Buffy wanted to use my ‘celebrity bonus’ to get VIP treatment in the boutiques.” Which his credit card would guarantee her anyway - they were not in England, after all. “That means news of a ruggedly handsome and rich author bankrolling the purchases of a group of nubile young women will make the rounds in New York’s society. At best, that means some tabloid will run the touching story of my reunion with the Sunnydale survivors I put up in my vacation home in the Hamptons after their town disappeared in a sinkhole. And that would draw attention to that particular event, and my involvement in it.” He saw that Kate understood - she had found out about his double life using that connection, after all. Her very ex-boyfriend was not quite as smart as she was, but he might get lucky and manage the same feat. “At worst, we’ll have to read about our impending break-up and my orgies with college girls not even a day into our relationship.” He smiled weakly when Kate’s eyes widened. “Welcome to dating a famous author in New York?”

“I didn’t think of that,” Kate said, as much to herself as to him, or so Rick thought.

“Getting cold feet?” Vi asked.

Kate glared at the Slayer. “No.”

“It’s not that bad, usually,” Castle said. “Remember the article about Nikki Heat, a few months ago?”

“Yes. I heard stripper jokes for a week.”

Castle made a note to avoid that particular topic. And he glared at Vi - her laughter wasn’t helpful right now. “Well… it’s really not too bad. Like neighbours gossipping, just on a slightly larger scale.”

“Slightly larger?” And the eyebrow went up.

“Well… with online communities spreading, even neighbour gossip can reach the other side of the country in minutes. All the intellectuals I know claim that newspapers are about to die out anyway.” He smiled at her. “You’ll get used to it before you know it?” He could see Kate take to it. She was not just beautiful and smart, she also had that je ne sais quoi.

“You’re not helping, Castle.” She frowned, then leaned back in her seat.

He didn’t give up that easily. “Well, there won’t be any journalists in the precinct. And if there are, I’ll have my lawyer slap them down with court orders so hard, their feet will pierce the core of the Earth!”

That made her laugh.

*****

If he still had thought that visiting the 12th Precinct had been a good idea, then Castle quickly would have learned differently. He might not have to deal with nosy journalists and gossips, but the precinct housed trouble of its own. Namely, the Federal Ex and Esposito. A jealous man, and a lovestruck man.

Kate’s former boyfriend had been glaring at Castle ever since Rick and Kate had arrived. The agent hadn’t even taken one of the doughnuts they had brought with them - if Rick had learned one thing hunting demons and wrangling Slayers, then that bringing food was always a good idea no matter the occasion.

Or bringing a Slayer - Esposito hadn’t even glanced in Rick’s direction. The detective was busy flirting with Vi. Who was shamelessly lapping up the attention, and even trying to flirt with Ryan as well, even though Esposito’s partner was in a relationship, and not quite as receptive to Vi’s charms. Which, of course, the redhead took as a challenge. Slayers!

Castle shook his head and took another sip from his coffee. Or what passed for it in the precinct. Not for the first time he told himself he’d buy the precinct a better coffee maker. As soon as the Fed Ex was gone, so the jealous man couldn’t try to arrest him for attempted bribery or so. “You know,” he casually remarked to Kate, “I wonder why you haven’t arrested the makers of this… thing here.” He pointed at the machine.

“What for?”

“Attempted assault with a lethal weapon, I’d say. But at the very least it’s fraud - they are trying to pass off sewage as coffee!”

Kate laughed. “Castle! Just because your palate is used to the most expensive italian blends doesn’t mean that this is bad coffee.” She took a sip from her own cup, then winced. “It probably needs a revision.”

“It needs to be put out of its misery!” Castle said. Then he tensed. “Heads up! Fed Ex at nine o’clock, headed towards us.” The agent was walking towards the break room.

“He’s not our enemy, Castle,” Beckett said.

“I know. He’d be easier to deal with if he were.” That earned him a glare. “Too soon?” he smiled at her.

She shook her head.

The Fed entering the break room prevented further conversation.

“Kate. Castle.” He nodded at them and closed the door behind him.

Castle thought the man sounded even more stuck up and frustrated than usual. He looked angry too. No, livid. “Yes?” Rick smiled as sweetly at the man as he could.

“I’ve been reassigned.”

“Oh? To Alaska, I hope?” Castle’s smile slipped a bit when Kate stepped on his foot.

“I’ve been called back to Quantico. Apparently a profiler has deduced that our serial killer has left the state.”

So, that was the excuse the FBI was using, Castle thought, to avoid keeping agents working on cases the Council had solved for them. He smiled. “That’s impressive.”

“It’s bullshit,” the agent snarled at him. “I know you’re behind this. I know you’re hiding something, Castle. I don’t know what. But this smells. And if I ever find out that you’ve been protecting a serial killer…”

“You don’t honestly think that the government, the FBI even, would protect a serial killer?” Castle did his best to sound incredulous. He knew the government had done worse, in Sunnydale. “Please. That’s straight out of Conspiracy Theories Weekly!” He chuckled.

“I know a cover-up when I see it, Castle. I’ve friends in high places too, and they told me that this is coming straight from Homeland Security. If Langley is operating on American soil there’ll be a lot of unhappy people once it comes out. And it will come out. And I’ll be there.” He nodded at them, and left.

“Wow. He really is a sore loser.” Castle shook his head. “And he thinks I’m working for the CIA! Isn’t that cool?”

He saw her expression and winced. No, Kate didn’t think that it was cool.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“Oh, this is great! Did you know that…”

“Castle! If you won’t let me finish this paperwork in peace, then I’ll take the afternoon off.”

Rick Castle perked up. That sounded like a great idea!

“And I’ll drag you with me to Buffy.”

Or not. He pouted, but his lover was clearly not going to budge on this, so he had to settle for quietly surfing the web on his smartphone next to her desk.

At least the Fed Ex - and Rick would just have to use that nickname in his book, he thought - had had enough sense of dramatic tension to leave them alone after his more-than-a-tad clichéd ‘promise’. And since Vi, obviously determined to have more than one man willing to risk death by demon for her, had kept up her flirting with Ryan, Esposito was spending most of the day alternatively glaring at his partner and sighing at the redhead. And the Feds were dismantling all the nifty gear they had brought with them, and moving out of the precinct.

Now if only Kate wouldn’t be so focused on her paperwork, the day would be perfect. But it would probably take a small miracle for that, he thought. Or maybe not - Kate had surprised him last night already, after all. Maybe he should consider doing some overtime with her…

“What are you daydreaming about now, Castle?”

“Last night,” he said, smiling at her.

She actually blushed a tiny bit, and turned her head down to stare at her paperwork again.

Point Castle!

*****

“So, what’s the plan?” Rick, leaning against Kate’s desk, asked sotto voce hours later, when the bullpen in the precinct started to empty.

“Plan?” Kate looked at him, wrinkling her nose while she kept closing the windows on her computer.

“You know, to deal with Esposito,” Castle whispered, leaning forward.

She looked at him as if he had said something stupid. “We take him to your home, and tell him.”

“That sounds rather simple,” Rick complained. “That would never fit into a novel.”

“Life is not a novel, Castle.”

“While I cannot disagree with that statement, I have to point out that life chooses to be far too much like a novel at the most inconvenient times.” Or a b-movie. Or a TV drama.

“Which doesn’t change the fact that simply telling them is the most obvious way to handle this.”

“Them?” Castle raised an eyebrow.

“Of course it’s ‘them’!” Vi was suddenly next to him. Long experience, iron self-control and the slight tiredness from spending a day at work kept Rick from yelping in surprise. “Ryan will now be willing to brave death by demon for me as well!”

Kate cocked her head to the side and gave Castle’s Slayer a flat stare. “He’s simply sticking with his partner. Not everything is about you.”

“Pf!” Vi sniffed. “Since Esposito is doing this for me, Ryan is indirectly doing this for me too!” She didn’t quite strike a pose, but Rick was certain that the way her leather jacket slid down her shoulders while she sat down on Kate’s desk and leaned back had been carefully calculated.

He had other things to worry about than his Slayer’s ego. “Are you certain?” he asked Kate in a low voice. “Ryan hasn’t shown any interest so far.”

“Ryan is Esposito’s partner. He won’t get involved in what he thinks is Esposito chasing Vi…”

“He is chasing me!” Vi cut in.

The detective continued unfazed: “...but he’ll notice once his partner starts moonlighting as a demon hunter. And since he’s a good detective, he’ll start to look into it.”

“You seem certain that Esposito will be hunting demons,” Rick said.

“I know him. Once he knows the truth he won’t be able to ignore that there are monsters on the streets of New York preying on people and just go on as before,” Kate said, standing up.

“He won’t be able to ignore me, you mean!” Vi said, pushing herself off the desk.

Kate ignored her and walked over to the desks of the two other detectives. Castle rushed to catch up with her.

“Esposito! Ryan! You two are invited to dinner at Castle’s,” Kate announced.

Esposito glanced at his partner, then to Vi, then at Kate before nodding. “Ok.”

Ryan though, looked confused for a moment, then asked: “Any special occasion?”

“To celebrate that the feds have finally left!” Rick said. He ignored Kate’s glare.

The two detectives chuckled, though Rick thought that Esposito looked a bit put out at Ryan being invited as well. That was Vi’s fault, of course - his Slayer had been flirting far too much with the detective.

Shaking his head, he took out his smart phone to call ahead and let the Scoobies now. At least Faith didn’t like cops, and would not hit on the two detectives.

Probably.

*****

As soon as Rick entered his flat, a blonde Slayer made a beeline towards him. “Rick! We missed you today! Why do you work when you’re rich already?” Buffy pouted at him, both hands on her hip.

“B! He wanted to spend the day with his lover, instead of following you through more shoe shops than you can count.” Faith shook her head. “Oh, those must be your guests.” She grinned at Esposito and Ryan, who were staring at the assembled Scoobies with obvious surprise.

“Exactly,” Castle said. “Everyone - Detectives Esposito and Ryan. Esposito, Ryan - Buffy, Faith, Dawn, Xander, Willow and Spike.”

“Also known as the Scoobies,” Xander said.

“Or the British Invasion,” Vi said.

“Hey! We’re Californian, not British!” Buffy protested. “I’ve not been infected with Brit-ness.”

“Unless Brit-ney Spears counts,” Dawn added.

“Speak for yourself, I’m British,” Spike said.

“They’re lookin’ fine. Too bad they’re cops,” Faith said, making a show of undressing the two slightly shell-shocked looking detectives with her eyes.

“Faith!” Buffy whirled around to glare at the other Slayer.

The girl shrugged. “What? It’s a compliment.”

“You’re being rude.”

“You’re being a prude.”

Castle cleared his throat before the scene could degenerate further. “And this is my daughter, Alexis,” he said, gesturing at the redhead.

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“She’s the responsible one in my family,” Rick went on. His smile slipped a bit when his daughter simply nodded sagely and with a slightly suffering air. It was true, but she could have acted as if it was a joke, at least!

“Wow, that’s a lot of swords and crossbows,” Ryan commented, looking at the walls as they made their way to the couches and seats.

“That’s nothing!” Vi said. “You should see my collection!”

Esposito frowned. He probably had realised that the Scoobies had, consciously or not, spread out again, almost surrounding the two detectives. Or he simply was irked at Vi’s flirting with Ryan, Castle thought.

Before the author could say anything, though, Buffy cleared her throat. “Alright. Let’s do the big reveal before dinner, so we don’t have to talk around the elephant in the room while we eat.” She grinned. “It also means we don’t have to waste any of that great pasta on Spike to keep up appearances.”

“Oy! I like eating.”

“Too bad! You don’t need to, and we have to prioritise food since it’s a limited resource.” Buffy smirked.

“My sister, the glutton.” Dawn sighed.

“Hey! I need the food!” Buffy protested.

Kate spoke up: “Can we skip the sibling squabble, and get to the heart of the matter?”

Rick saw that Esposito was paying close attention now, and Ryan’s surprise and amusement had given way to puzzlement and, unless Castle was very much mistaken, growing suspicion.

“That’s your job, Dad,” Alexis said.

“It’s actually Giles’s,” Buffy said, “but Rick will do in a pinch. He’s British enough.”

“I’m a red-blooded American!” Rick said. “I’m not even living in London any more.”

“You did live there, though, and you were a librarian, and a writer. That pretty much means you’re an honourary Brit.”

“My first wife would vehemently contest that,” Rick said. “But you are correct; I’d rather tell the tale myself than listen to someone else mauling it.”

“Good!” Buffy beamed at him, then blinked. “Wait, did you mean…”

Rick didn’t let her finish. He looked at the two detectives, sitting on the couch.

“The world is older than you know…”

*****

As Castle had expected, neither Esposito nor Ryan took him seriously. They let him finish, at least, but as soon as Rick had sat down again, Esposito shook his head. “That’s a nice plot for a fantasy book.”

“It’s the whole truth,” Castle said, smiling. “Vampires and other demons are real, and all of us here are fighting them to protect humanity.”

“That’s bullshit,” the detective said. His partner was silent and seemed to consider the matter, although Rick didn’t know if Ryan was contemplating if it could be true, or simply pondering how to get all of them institutionalised.

“No, that’s reality. But we anticipated your doubts, and so we’ve prepared proof.”

“Proof?” Esposito looked at him. “You’ve got a monster hiding under your bed?”

Castle wouldn’t get a better cue. He nodded at Spike. “Not under my bed, actually.”

A moment later, Spike had vamped out and was holding up both detectives by their collars.

“Madre de dios!”

“Holy Mother of God!”

Castle was impressed by the synchronised reaction of Ryan and Esposito.

*****

**New York, October 2009**

“As you can see, gentlemen, vampires are real. As are many other demons.” Richard Castle smiled broadly while Spike released the two detectives.

As soon as the vampire had taken a step back, Esposito, still coughing, drew his pistol. “You…”

His next words were lost when he gasped at his pistol flying out of his hands to the ceiling, then towards Willow, coming to a stop near her. The witch promptly proceeded to unload the gun telekinetically. “We don’t like firearms,” she said, looking at Ryan, who slowly lowered his hand, which had been almost to his own gun.

“Speak for yourself!” Buffy said. “I love my M60!”

“Well, of course you would! Mr. Gordo proves that you love pigs,” Dawn said.

“Firearms are an essential part of a well-prepared demon hunting force,” Xander added while Buffy glared at her sister.

“That doesn’t mean that we have to like them!” Willow said.

“Well, no… but we do it anyway!” Buffy said.

“You love all weapons. It’s a Slayer thing,” Spike said, changing back from his ‘game face’ back into his human facade.

So much for the dramatic reveal, Castle thought. He cleared his throat. “Any way, yes, vampires, werewolves, witches, werecats, lizardmen, bezoars, and pretty much every monster you have heard of in Fairy Tales are real. But for Leprechauns - those do not exist. Don’t ask me what the Irish thought when they made those up.”

“That strength… Madre de dios! Vi’s a vampire!” Esposito looked at the redhead with horror written over his face. “I’ve fallen for an undead!”

While Vi gaped at the detective, apparently at a loss for words, the Scoobies broke out in laughter and even Kate was chuckling. Rick carefully wasn’t laughing. Vi was his Slayer, after all. And she had a key to his flat.

And, he noted with some alarm, she was close to losing her temper. He quickly took a few steps forward, putting himself between her and the unfortunate detective. “No, Vi’s not a vampire.”

“But she’s pale! And quick as lightning! And superstrong!” Esposito was looking past Castle, and growing quite pale himself, right then.

“Her skin tone is the fault of her Irish heritage.”

“Fault?!”

“Dad! How could you?”

“Genetics are no grounds for discrimination. Red hair and pale skin certainly are nothing negative! And I strongly object to labeling witches as monsters!”

Castle cringed when Vi turned her ire towards him, joined by his daughter and Willow. Even Ryan seemed to be glaring at him, but the detective with Irish roots still looked too shocked to tell. “I meant to say ‘that sublime skin tone is the result of good Irish genes!’,” he quickly added. “Moving on. Vi is not a vampire, she’s a vampire hunter. If you had read my books, you’d have realised this at once.” He frowned at Esposito.

“Slayers are the monster’s bogeymen. Bogeywomen, actually,” Willow cut in. “Or rather, bogeywoman, singular, since for millennia, there has always been just one Slayer. Which you would have known had you paid attention to Rick’s speech.”

“Esposito! You have seen her out in the sun multiple times!” Even Kate seemed exasperated.

“Well, I’ve been out in the sun once as well. Magic jewel protected me,” Spike said. “The Slayer freaked out.” He chuckled.

“The Slayer,” Buffy said testily, “kicked your ass and took the thing from you, and you had to jump down into the next sewer to avoid burning to ash!”

“Those weren’t the sewers!” Spike said. “Those were access tunnels!”

“Good old Sunnydale, were all infrastructure was built so light-sensitive monsters would not have trouble accessing the buildings.” Xander sighed. “A clear case of political correctness taken too far.”

At least, Rick told himself, the Scoobies’ antics had defused Vi’s anger, somewhat at least. He sighed. “I see I have repeat my explanation. Please pay more attention now.” Maybe he should test them afterwards. No, that would be too much work for him. He started the speech again. “The world is older than you know…”

“Hurry it up, Rick! Food’s going to be ready soon!”

Castle’s glare was utterly ignored by Faith while Buffy gasped. “Oh my god! She’s right - we can’t miss dinner! Xander! Do one of your long story short summaries!”

Castle would never laugh at Rupert’s complaints again, he told himself.

*****

“So… Vi’s a supernaturally powered vampire hunter.”

“Yes.” Castle nodded at Ryan while he dished out more pasta.

“As are Buffy and Faith,” the cop continued.

“Yes.”

“And Willow is a witch.”

“And witches are not monsters or evil!” the witch in question said, lifting her plate towards Castle.

“They can be, though,” Xander added. “Like all humans.”

“And you two are normal humans who hunt demons.”

Castle nodded. “Yes.”

“Demons which have been hunting humans for centuries.”

“Far longer than that, actually. The records of the Council only reach back to the time writing was invented.” It wasn’t quite true, but it made for a very nice story.

“And this is kept a secret with the help of the government.”

“All of the governments, actually. Or most - I’m not certain how long we need to approach some of the newer states.” Rick didn’t think joking about the Council still waiting if these “United American States” would work out or not was appropriate here. “But I can assure you that we’re not doing anything illegal. We have treaties with the government. Secret ones, of course.”

“Of course.” Ryan was talking in a flat voice. Like Kate had when Rick had explained that, he remembered. It had to be a cop thing. Still, this was going better than he had thought. True, Esposito hadn’t said much, but Ryan at least was talking quite calmly for a man who had just had his worldview shattered, Castle thought. Talking over dinner helped, he had to make a note of that.

“And why is this kept a secret? Why don’t you tell people about this danger?” Ryan stood up, gesturing wildly. “Vampires murder people by the hundreds, and they don’t even know about this?”

Apparently, Ryan wasn’t the calmer of the two, Castle noted. He sighed. “We would love to tell everyone. But if we did, if humanity as a whole was aware of demons, then the consequences would be catastrophic.”

“What would be worse than hundreds of people being murdered - eaten even! - by monsters?” Now Esposito was getting into the argument as well.

“The Old Ones awakening,” Castle answered. “The end of the world, in short.” He nodded at them. “Our records tell us that the more people believe in them, the more powerful they become. That wasn’t that much of a problem at the dawn of time, when very few humans were around, but with billions of us around...” He shook his head. “We cannot risk that.”

“Yes. We’ve stopped far too many apocalypses already, we’re not letting you start another one!” Buffy said, nodding emphatically while waving a fork full of pasta around, sending some flying towards her sister. Since he knew how good Buffy was with anything thrown, he didn’t think that had been an accident.

Neither did Dawn, judging by her outraged expression.

“Apocalypes?”

Once again, the two detectives had spoken in unison. No wonder they were partners, Castle thought.

*****

Rick thought that people generally should be more impressed with the fact that the Council had saved the world several times in the last decade when they were told about it. It wasn’t as if he often had the opportunity to inform others about his own part in preventing the end of the world - an achievement he was quite a bit more proud of than his success as an author.

No, instead of being at least a tiny bit awed, Esposito and Ryan were focusing on the fact that the world had been in danger of ending. He shook his head. Life wasn’t fair!

“You mean… you’re all that stands between us and the end of the world?” Ryan said.

“Yes,” Buffy said.

Vi was probably still put out with the detectives’ reaction to her, and simply nodded.

“Pretty much,” Faith said between shoveling dessert into her mouth.

“Indee...ow!”

“No imitating TV shows in a serious discussion, Xander!”

“Dawn! It’s obvious that they are taking this far too seriously!”

“It’s the end of the world! It’s meant to be taken seriously!” The Slayer’s sister was not budging.

“A bit of humour always helps!”

“No, it doesn’t! Have you forgotten Mrs. Henderson’s funeral?” Willow was getting in it as well.

“I still say that everyone loved my comment, they just acted outraged so they won’t be cut out of the will!” Xander pouted and folded his arms.

“The world is still standing, despite half a dozen attempts to end it in the last decade and half,” Castle said. “So, it’s obvious that we’ve been doing a good job.” He glared at Willow before she could correct him with statistics. The two detectives needed to trust them.

“There were more attempts to end the world than that!” Buffy complained. “We stopped a dozen in Sunnydale alone!”

“We’re only counting those with a good chance to succeed in actually destroying the world. Things that would just have wiped out a town or state don’t count,” Dawn explained.

“What? That’s so not fair! An apocalypse is an apocalypse, no matter how big!” Buffy huffed and pouted.

“If it’s too small it’s not really an apocalypse, Buffy,” Xander said.

“Exactly! And since it’s called an apocalypse, it is an apocalypse!” Buffy beamed, pleased with herself.

This time Castle didn’t stop Willow.

*****

 

**New York, October 2009**

It took a few more demonstrations of magic by Willow - after she had stopped lecturing Buffy - and a bit of weight- or rather couch-lifting by a Slayer, until Esposito and Ryan fully accepted that this really was no trick, that there was a hidden world full of monsters and magic. Which, Castle made a note, sounded far too much like a roleplaying ad for him to use in one of his books.

The two detectives were currently putting a bit of a dent into his liquor cabinet. Which still needed a better lock, as his daughter had oh so helpfully pointed out.

“So… that’s why you’ve been following us around!” Esposito said suddenly, spilling some of Castle’s expensive single malt when he gestured with the glass in his hand. “You’re looking for monsters among our cases!”

“That’s actually not true,” Rick said. “We’ve been doing this for years before we met.” He smiled at Kate, sitting next to him, and wrapped his arm around her. “I’m following her around because she’s my muse for my next book.” And now his girlfriend. Lover. Future fiancée.

“And I’m still not pleased with having a character with a stripper name patterned after me,” Kate cut in.

“It’s rather sexist,” Willow added. She was drinking orange juice, hand- or more precisely, magic-pressed from organic oranges.

“It’s not sexist! It’s sexy,” Rick defended his work. “My editor agrees with me!”

“Your editor agrees with everything that she thinks will sell more books,” Alexis said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not sexist.”

“It means I’m a bestselling author,” Rick said. He wasn’t pouting. Not really. “Besides, the character’s character is far more important than her name.”

“It had better be,” Kate said, frowning at him.

She really was fitting in well with his family, Castle thought - she already was trying to influence his work like everyone else.

“Can we get back to the demons?” Ryan said, a bit testily in Rick’s opinion.

“Of course.” He smiled at the two detectives.

The detective pointed at Spike, who was munching on his blood-soaked weetabix. The vampire was doing this just to mess with the two men, Rick was certain. “You said vampires were corpses possessed by demons with the memories, but not the soul of the human who died. And that you hunted them mercilessly. What is the matter with him?”

“Ah, he’s an exception. He’s got a soul,” Buffy said. “One of two vampires who are not irredeemable monsters.”

“I earned my soul!” Spike said, licking his bloody lips. “Unlike the poofter, who was cursed with it.”

“And who might have lost his soul again when he went evil lawyer,” Xander said.

Buffy glared at both of them, before sighing. “Anyway - soulless vampires hunt humans for food and kicks. They don’t feel any remorse killing people. They love killing people.”

Spike nodded. “Yes. I lost count of how many humans I killed. And I enjoyed it.” He grinned, then noticed the glares from everyone and quickly added: “That was the soulless demon, not me.”

“Yes. Now you’re a souled demon,” Xander said. “Such an improvement.”

Esposito blinked. “Does that mean you got your soul back from… heaven?” He was rubbing the cross in his hands.

Spike shrugged. “I don’t know, mate. I know I got a soul, but whether it’s my original, or a new one… I’ll find that out once I die, I s’pose.” With a grin, he added: “I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, of course.”

“But...“ Esposito trailed off. “Does that mean you have met God? Jesus?”

Maybe there was truth to the saying that there were no atheists in foxholes, Castle thought. He didn’t know how to answer that - religion was a very complicated subject among the Scoobies.

“No,” Buffy said. “We’ve met a hellgoddess. And kicked her ass.” She sounded less flippant than usual, Rick thought.

“Holy water affects vampires, though,” Xander said. “As does a cross. Both burn them real good.” He turned to Spike.

“Don’t even think about demonstrating them on me,” the vampire snarled.

“But the mother goddess’s blessings work as well,” Willow added. “So, it’s not as Christianity is the one true religion! It doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, either,” she added, “but, of course, for all the misogynist dogma, and the intolerance, and…”

Castle cleared his throat. “Anyway - back to demons. Vampires are among the most common demons, but there are a lot of different demons, and not all of them are evil monsters.”

“Some are good monsters,” Dawn said.

“Although it’s better to be safe than sorry - don’t trust them as a rule,” Xander said, “unless you know them.”

“Oh, yes. We’ll need to introduce you to a few of the good demons,” Alexis said. “We wouldn’t want you to kill them by accident.”

“Speaking of killing,” Xander spoke up with a grin,” there are lots of ways to kill demons. Bullets sadly don’t work well on too many demons - such as Spike here - but fire works well enough, as does decapitation. Then there are the specific weaknesses of various demons...”

“Xander! We don’t know if they even want to hunt demons,” Willow said, frowning.

“They’ll need to know this for self-defense.”

“They’ve been fine so far without knowing about demons.”

“I’m not fine anymore,” Ryan said. “To know such monsters are out there…” He glanced at Spike. “Are you hunting demons, Beckett?”

“Yes. I kind of ended up dragged into this,” Kate said.

“More like you butted in.” Vi snorted. “Fortunately, I was able to keep her from getting herself killed.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Kate said.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite able to keep her from hurting her head, which led to her memory loss,” Vi said, sighing theatrically. “Tragic.”

“As you can see, Vi’s not just fighting fantasy monsters, she’s also living in a fantasy,” Kate retorted. Her smile was more a baring of teeth, too.

Castle cleared his throat before things could escalate further. “Anyway. I can give you some special bullets that will hurt a number of demons, as well as some Dragon’s Breath shotgun shells.” He couldn’t resist to add: “A flamethrower would be more effective, but they are a bit hard to carry around.”

“Castle, you don’t… you don’t have a flamethrower?” Esposito said.

“Yes, he does,” Kate said. “Several, in fact. And yes, he actually has a permit for his various weapons.”

That started a discussion about the legalities of demon hunting. Unsurprisingly, Ryan took almost as long to accept that demon hunting was legal as Kate had, while Esposito was far more accepting.

*****

“That went better than I expected,” Rick said, once he was - finally! - alone with Kate again. Not yet in his bedroom, alas.

“What did you expect?” Kate asked, gathering up the empty glasses. Alexis had offered to do it, but Castle had sent her to bed - she had school the next day, after all. Vi hadn’t offered, and hadn’t school, but Rick’s Slayer had gone out hunting with Buffy and Faith. And Spike had gone drinking with Xander, of all people. Castle had known the Scoobies for the better part of a decade by now, and still couldn’t make heads or tails of their relationships. And Willow had done the sensible thing, and headed to bed.

“More screaming, and shouting, and shooting,” he said. When he saw her frown, he added with a grin: “among the Scoobies.”

She snorted. After a moment, she said:  “I’m surprised your mother hasn’t returned yet.”

Castle coughed. “I told her it was safe, but apparently, she has met a man in the Hamptons, and is staying a bit longer.” He should have expected that, knowing his mother. “So, do you think they’ll want to hunt demons as well?”

Kate hesitated. “Honestly?”

“Always.” he raised his right index. “Unless you’re about to criticise me. In that case, feel free to spare my feelings and lie.” He grinned, to show he was joking.

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. A little. Then she grew serious. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh?” That surprised him. He would have expected the two detectives to follow Kate’s example. Especially Esposito, since the man was a veteran.

“Esposito quit the army because he didn’t want to fight in the war against terror any longer. I doubt he wants to in the war against demons.” She put the glasses into the washer.

“Not even to impress Vi?” Men did a lot to impress women. Castle knew that from his own experiences.

“Didn’t you see him today? He hasn’t looked at her since the revelation.” Kate sighed.

“Oh.” Rick had missed that. “Can’t handle a girl stronger than him?”

“No. I think it’s the ‘superhuman’ part that is the problem.” The detective winced.

“I see.” Rick frowned.

“Do you think this will hurt her?”

“More her pride, I think.” Rick didn’t think Vi was interested in Esposito. Not seriously. But then, she didn’t have to, to be hurt by someone rejecting her for being a Slayer - she hadn’t chosen to be chosen.

He might have to talk to Esposito about this.

*****

 


	21. Werewolves and Skin-Walkers

**New York, November 2009**

Rick Castle felt relieved - it was finally time to say goodbye to his guests. He liked the Scoobies, but two weeks of them would test the patience of a saint, and Rick would never be accused of being a saint. But finally, after two shopping trips that made the society pages in the newspapers, and probably the business reports, the Scoobies were boarding their flight back to London, where they’d be Rupert’s problem.

“Dad! Don’t smile that much! You don’t have to show everyone that you’re glad our friends are leaving!”

“Alexis! How can you think that?” He pouted at his daughter.

“Because you marked the day in the calendar a week in advance, and were ready to drive them to the airport hours before their scheduled flight?” Rick’s daughter was shaking her head at him.

“It’s important not to mix the dates up after they rescheduled their flight, and you know how bad traffic in New York is.” Rick smiled.

“You’re a bad liar, Dad. Not to mention that they are using a private jet, so they can’t miss their flight.”

He frowned at her. Alexis knew him too well. Which was generally a good thing, of course. “As a responsible parent, I have the right and duty to be glad that you’re no longer exposed to such corrupting influences.”

“Spike promised he’ll send me a list with more complicated locks to train with.” Alexis was smiling widely. “And Dawn already gave me access to the restricted section of the digital archives of the Council. And I think we both know what will happen if I tell Faith that you think she’s corrupting me.”

Oh, yes. Rick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “When I told you that a bit of teenage rebellion would be good for you, I didn’t mean that.”

“If I did what you wanted, it wouldn’t be a rebellion, Dad.” His daughter was smirking.

He sighed. At least Alexis was responsible enough to have resisted Buffy’s attempt to turn her into a clothes horse.

“New York is mine again!” Vi declared when the private jet of the Council had taken off, balling her fist.

“Ours,” Rick corrected her.

“Vi!” Alexis frowned at the Slayer.

“I’m just glad that they are back to protecting the other parts of the world,” Vi said, grinning, “since Rick and I are perfectly capable of protecting New York. Wouldn’t want to leave other countries defenceless. Besides,” she added, “Buffy’s shoe-shopping ate into my sword budget.”

Castle frowned at her. “Are you insinuating that my bank account is your personal shopping budget?”

“Yes!”

He glared at her, but his Slayer just giggled. As did his daughter. Story of his life.

*****

Rick and Vi stepped out of the lift - the elevator - into the 12th Precinct with their usual gifts for the staff: doughnuts and coffee that wasn’t violating several regulations from the FDA. He’d gift the precinct a decent coffee maker for Christmas. Or have his agent do it. That way, it would probably be considered a business expense.

Kate wasn’t at her desk, though he saw that there were files spread out on its surface, so she was in. Rick hadn’t broached the topic of her moving in, yet. He didn’t want to appear pushy. Even though it would make so much sense, and would be far safer for her. And they would wake up together each morning.

“She’s with the Captain,” Vi said, unasked. He glanced at her, and she added with a smirk: “Yes, you’re that transparent.”

“I get no respect,” he muttered, shaking his head as he proceeded to Kate’s desk and his chair there.

“Aren’t you curious what they are talking about?” Vi asked, following him.

“She’ll tell me if it’s important.” And he could always ask Vi later.

Castle put the smaller doughnut box and two cups to go with coffee down on the desk.

“I’ll take this to the break room,” Vi announced, grabbing the rest. She was wearing her leathers, again, and walking like Faith.

Rick glanced over at the desks of Ryan and Esposito. Both were tracking the Slayer, but trying to act as if they were focusing on their work. He sighed. The two were adjusting to the reveal, but taking their time. At least they didn’t avoid Vi anymore. Or not too obviously.

Ah, there was Kate! He smiled at the detective leaving Captain Montgomery’s office. He frowned, though, when he realised that she didn’t look too happy, and held out her cup of coffee. “Morning, Detective.”

She grabbed the cup without a word. After a gulp, she relaxed. “Thanks, Castle.”

“I live to serve.” He took a sip from his own. “You don’t seem to be in a good mood.”

She quickly glanced around. “The Captain noticed that Esposito and Ryan seem to have some issues with us. And since I couldn’t tell him what their issues are, I had to evade his questions. Which he noticed.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “As a result, he thinks that they are jealous of you, and that there’s a love-triangle involving me, you, and Vi. Or possibly a ménage à trois.”

Castle just knew that Vi, who had undoubtedly overheard them, would find this immensely amusing. Which meant the rest of his family would hear about this.

Which explained his relieved smile when Captain Montgomery yelled out of his office: “Beckett! You’ve got a case!”

*****

As expected, Vi was chuckling for most of the drive to the scene of the crime.

“It’s not funny,” Kate said from the back bench of Castle’s Shelby.

“Yes, it is!” the Slayer said while passing a speeding pizza delivery car.

Rick could feel Kate’s eyes on the back of his head. He coughed. “For someone not involved, it could be seen as amusing, I guess.” And it would fit so well into his book!

“Castle! Do you have any idea what the rumour mill at the precinct will make of this?” Beckett hissed. “Or the tabloids?”

“Ah… the tabloids will keep Vi out of this.” His lawyer had seen to that.

Kate didn’t seem to as happy about this information as she should have been, to his surprise. “That still leaves all my colleagues thinking that I’m in competition with Vi for your affection!”

“You should be flattered!” Vi chuckled. “Not many can be considered competition compared with me!”

“I think the rest of the precinct has taken Esposito’s sudden loss of interest in you to mean you’re not that hot,” Kate said.

“What?” Vi turned her head to stare at Kate while taking the next turn. “Who is spreading that rumour? It’s so his fault for not being able to handle me!” She scowled. “Just because I’m faster, stronger and a better shot than he is!”

“It’s not that. He has trouble with the fact that you’re a _magically_ powered demon hunter,” Kate corrected her.

Vi bared her teeth and turned her attention back to the road. “Damn bigots!”

It wasn’t exactly bigotry, Rick knew that, but he didn’t think that it would be a good time to explain the issues some religious people had with the supernatural. He exchanged a glance with Beckett, who winced a bit, then sighed. Maybe he could leave that to Alexis. It would be good training for her future Watcher-ness. Dear Lord, he still was using Scoobie terms! And English terms!

*****

“Morning, Lanie. What do you have for us?” Beckett asked, stepping past the yellow tape into the side alley, past two uniforms keeping the gawkers away.

The medical examiner, bent over a man sprawled on the ground between two trash cans, looked up. “Male, twenty to thirty years old. Preliminary cause of death: Gunshot wound in the chest, no exit wound.”

Castle stared at the body. “He’s nude.” Sometimes you had to state the obvious, if no one else did it.

Lanie nodded. “Yes.” She probed the wound with a pair of tweezers. “I don’t see any fabric inside the wound canal.”

“So he was nude, or at least bare-chested, when he was shot,” Castle deduced. He looked up at the fire escape above them. “Maybe he was fleeing from a cuckolded husband.” Then Lanie pulled the bullet out, and held it up. It was deformed, and there was blood stuck to it, but Castle recognised a silver bullet. He had used them often enough himself. “Or it was a werewolf.” It had just been the full moon, after all.

Kate frowned. “Wouldn’t he have been in his wolf form then?”

“Not if he was shot after changing back,” Castle said.

“I’ll have you a time of death once I’m back in the lab,” Lanie said. “Unless werewolf bodies in human form are different from normal bodies,” she added with a chuckle as she left for the ambulance. Perlmutter hadn’t talked to her yet, then, Castle thought.

“Do you think it’s a werewolf?” Kate said.

Vi bent down, sniffing the corpse. Castle looked around to check that no one was watching, and moved to block the line of sight anyway.

His Slayer stood up, frowning. “He smells like a wolf.”

“A werewolf!” Castle nodded.

“No, a wolf.”

“Or a dog?” Kate asked.

“It’s a wolf!” Vi said. “I know what they smell like.”

Her expression discouraged Rick from making a ‘raised by wolves’ joke. He would save that for his book. “So, we have a nude man, shot after the full moon, smelling of wolves.” He grinned. “This is bound to be an interesting case!”

Unfortunately, the others didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm.

*****

**New York, November 2009**

“Do we have a name for our vic yet?” Richard Castle asked once they were back in the precinct.

“No. The uniforms haven’t found any form of ID nearby and his prints are not in the system,” Kate said without looking up from the file she was reading.

“There can’t be that many people in close contact with wolves.” Rick sat down on his chair. Which was not quite as comfortable as it could be, he thought. Maybe he could replace it with a more comfortable one.

“And how can we explain that connection? ‘Our human bloodhound smelled wolf’ will not go over well with the DA.” Kate shook her head.

“Hey!” Vi glared at them from two desks away, where she was trying to flirt with Esposito and Ryan.

Castle frowned at Kate. Both because she was reminding him of the problems of mixing Slayer powers with proper police procedure, and because she was riling Vi up with her bloodhound remark. Even though his Slayer did have a better nose than most breeds. He rubbed his nose. “Well… hopefully Lanie will find some hair or such on the body.”

“Which you’ll make more werewolf comments about.”

“Of course!” It was the best cover, after all.

“Don’t you think Lanie should know the truth? Since she’s working with bodies all day.”

Now Kate was looking at him. He sighed. “Perlmutter said he’d do it ‘when she’s ready’.”

“Don’t tell me that the Medical Examiners have their own secret organisation!” Kate was making that cute surprised face again.

“Alright, I won’t,” Rick answered. When he saw her expression change into a glare, he quickly added: “It’s not exactly an organisation. Just some… network, you might call it. Or  maybe mentors is a better expression. Just some more experienced guys teaching the younger ones the ropes. I think.”

“I might have to talk to Perlmutter then.”

Castle hoped that talk would be more successful than his own with Esposito. Apart from assurances that it was him, not her, nothing had come of it. And Vi was still trying to ‘crack him’, as she called it. Apparently, it was now a matter of pride. Slayers!

“Anyway… what do we do if there is no wolf-trace on the good or bad man?” Rick played around with a pen taken from Kate’s desk until she grabbed it out of his hands.

“We’ll use the standard methods,” she answered.

“Which work oh so well,” he said, sighing.

“Not everyone has their personal supernatural…”

“Hey!”

“...organisation to help them in their investigations,” Kate finished, rolling her eyes at Vi.

“It’s not actually my personal organisation,” Castle said. “I work for them, not the other way around. Just saying.”

“You know what I mean,” Kate said, frowning some more.

“Yes.” It would be very nice to have an organisation of his own, of course. With special equipment and handshakes. Maybe not the handshakes.

Lanie calling Beckett interrupted his planning of an underground base.

*****

“So… what did you find?” Rick asked when he and Kate entered Lanie’s office.

“Cause of death was a silver bullet that entered his heart. Shot from far enough that there are no powder burns on the chest.” Lanie smiled. “DNA tests do not show anything out of the ordinary, and I have found no sign of anything inhuman in his anatomy. He’s not even particularly hairy. Nor has he eaten human flesh - his stomach contained the remains of a quite normal burger with fries. Sorry, Castle, but he’s not a werewolf.”

“The transformation is magical in nature, so he could still be a werewolf,” Rick said. Lanie rolled her eyes, and Beckett frowned at him. He coughed.

“But I have something for you, Castle: The man had contact to wolves. I found several wolf hairs on him.” She grinned at him.

“Oh! Maybe he’s a werewolf sitter?” Rick rubbed his chin. “It was the night of the full moon, after all. Such skills would have been in demand.”

“Wolves, Castle. Not werewolves,” Lanie said, glancing at Kate.

“A man can dream.”

“We’ll be looking into any zoo or wildlife preserve employees,” the detective said. “Coming, Castle?”

*****

“You know, Lanie’s probably wondering why you didn’t shoot my ‘theories’ down as usual,” Rick remarked when Kate and he were back in the lift taking them back to her office.

She sighed. “I know that they are not absurd, which makes it hard to tear into them - unless I examine them with the knowledge that magic is real in mind.”

He blinked. “You’re testing my theories?”

“Yes, Castle.”

“I am one of the foremost experts on demons, you know.” He grinned - he should have expected that.

“No one is perfect, Castle. And neither are theories.” She grinned back at him.

“Some come close though.” He smiled at her, until she understood, and blushed slightly.

*****

“People always say that today’s youth is growing up far apart from nature. You’d not be able to guess that, seeing as we must have gone through a dozen zoos and preserves so far,” Castle complained - commented - when Vi stopped their car in front of the gate to the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge.

“You don’t sound much like a nature lover yourself, Castle.” Kate Beckett stretched - the drive up here had taken some time, even with Vi breaking traffic laws left and right.

“I do love nature!” he protested. “I’ve visited this area several times in the past, to be exact!”

“You mean you’ve been to Lake Placid,” Kate deadpanned, already walking towards the entrance.

“That counts!” Rick said, hurrying after her while Vi chuckled.

Kate rang the bell, and after a minute or two, a middle-aged woman in sturdy clothes appeared. “The refuge is closed on Tuesdays,” she said, not quite looking at the sign that displayed opening times next to the gate.

Kate flashed her badge, or her ‘universal door opener’, as Castle had once called it. “NYPD. We need to ask you a few questions.”

*****

“Yes, I recognise this man. Martin Miller. He visited the refuge a few months ago. Half a year, actually. He wanted to buy some of our great plains wolves. Pups. We refused, of course - he was just one more of those enthusiastic ‘animal lovers’ who wanted to have wild animals as pets, usually keeping them in pens in horrible conditions.” The woman, who had introduced herself as Anne Smith, pointed at the fenced-in area behind her. “Wolves need more space than most people can provide for them.”

“We have evidence that he was in close contact with wolves, shortly before his death,” Kate said. “Do you think other preserves might have sold animals to him?”

“Not preserves, no.” Anne shook her head. “We all know better than that. What kind of subspecies was he in contact with? ”

“We actually haven’t determined that yet. Could we have some hair samples to compare?”

“We have samples of our own wolves, but you’ll have to ask other preserves and zoos for theirs.” Anne looked over her shoulder. “Do you want to see our wolves?”

“Yes, please,” Kate and Vi said, at the same time Castle said: “No!”

“Afraid of the big bad wolf, Castle?” the detective asked, with a grin.

“I’m not afraid of wolves.” He had dealt with werewolves, after all. “But I think we don’t have the time to visit them, and it’s their day off, right? We shouldn’t disturb them.” He glanced at Vi, but his Slayer was studying the fenced-off area in front of them, smiling wildly. Her nostrils were flaring a bit, even.

Unfortunately, Kate and Anne mistook that as enthusiasm. “You can stay here,” Anne said. “Or wait in the car,” Kate added.

They were off before Rick could object any more. He sighed. Why weren’t people listening to him?

*****

“That was a disaster,” Kate said once they were driving away from the preserve. “Anne couldn’t understand why the wolves reacted that way. Fortunately, we could persuade her that we’d been contact with bears at another preserve, and that Vi had been hugging one.”

Rick glared at his Slayer, who grinned.

“I just wanted to check if our vic smelled like those wolves,” she said, with that innocent tone that hadn’t fooled him, ever. “He didn’t, actually.”

“And you wanted to show them who’s boss,” Rick said. Slayers!

Her grin widened.

“Like a dog,” Kate added from the back seat, and Vi’s grin disappeared.

*****

“That’s probably the closest ‘out in the woods’ area to New York you can find,” Rick commented a few hours later when they drew up in front of Miller’s address.

Vi sniffed the air. “Wolves. Same scent as Miller.”

“That was to be expected,” Kate commented, then approached the door. She rang the bell. No one answered it.

“That was to be expected as well,” Castle said, grinning.

“Someone’s running inside,” Vi cut in. “Towards the back.” And she took off, at Slayer speed, and disappeared around the corner.

Castle and Beckett exchanged a glance, and then followed. Rick wanted to comment that there was no need to run as well, but that would have made him look lazy.

As expected - again! - it was over before either of them arrived. Vi was kneeling on a young man, a teenager, Castle thought, holding him in a painful arm lock.

“Let me go! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Why did you run then when you heard the doorbell?” Kate asked, crouching down next to him and pulling his wallet out from the back pocket of his jeans. “Mister… Jeremiah Bancroft?”

“Jim. It’s Jim Bancroft,” the boy said. “And I just wanted to save the puppies!”

“The puppies?” Rick asked.

“He keeps them in the basement! A dozen of them!”

Which was, as they quickly found out, not quite correct. Miller had kept puppies in his basement. Emphasis on ‘had’. It was empty, but it was clear that the dead man had kept several wolves down there. There were pens - or cells. Food bags, mostly empty, and poop bags. Not empty. Castle gagged at the stench.

“Blood,“ Vi suddenly said, and moved towards a door in the back. It wasn’t locked.

“I didn’t think people took ‘puppy mill’ that literally,” Castle said a moment later, staring at the blood-covered tools and tables.

 

Both women glared at him, and he winced. “Too soon?”

Kate rolled her eyes and stepped inside, pulling on latex gloves while she carefully navigated the various stains on the concrete floor.

Rick and Vi followed her. “He skinned them,” the Slayer said, pointing at a bloody frame from which hung straps of fur.

“Is there a market for wolf pelts?” Rick wondered. And if it was, would it be profitable? The whole set-up looked rather small-scale. He peered at a few cans with chemicals. “Did he cure the pelts too? Quite the entrepreneur, I think.” Something didn’t add up, though.

“Bottles of what looks like blood,” Kate said, pointing at a shelf. “And dried meat.”

“More meat,” Vi said, after opening a large fridge.

“And bones here. It looks like he was a very wholesome butcher - no part went to waste;” Castle said. When no one laughed, he muttered “Tough crowd.”

“Ew…”

He looked up and saw Vi standing in the frame of a door at the back. Rick walked over to her and peered inside. “A sewing machine… ‘Silence of the Lambs’, anyone? Or would that be ‘Silence of the Wolves’?”

“Castle, making clothes out of fur is not a sign of a serial killer. People have been doing that for thousands of years,” Kate said, joining Rick and Vi.

“Not a serial killer… but a furry!” Rick nodded at the most prominent template pinned to the wall. “That’s a fur suit!”

“That’s not illegal either.” Kate was shaking her head.

“It should be,” Rick muttered under his breath. Then he blinked. “There’s a book under those templates! And it doesn’t look like a sewing book.”

Kate walked over and brushed the papers on top of the book away. “‘Skin-Walkers’,” she quoted the title. “Those didn’t appear in any of your books, Rick.” She looked the book over. “And unless grimoires have started to be published with ISBNs, that’s not a magic book either, isn’t it?”

“Willow would have dealt with anyone trying to publish books covering real magic,” Rick said. The last thing the world needed were more people dabbling in magic without a responsible teacher. “Not that there would be any books about real skin-walkers; the Navajo do not share any information about them with outsiders, and they certainly wouldn’t write in English.”

“This doesn’t smell like magic either,” Vi added, her gesture encompassing the whole basement.

“There’s no ties to demons then,” Kate said. “I’ll call it in.”

“Maybe there was a furry convention in New York, and Miller was killed by militant vegan furries after they realised that his suit was made from real fur?” Rick rubbed his chin.

“Is there even such a thing as militant vegan furries?”

“Well… wouldn’t it make sense for plant-eating furries to be hostile towards carnivorous  furries?” Rick held up his hands when he noticed the stares. “I’m no expert on furries. And I don’t want to be.”

“Too freaky for you, Castle?” Kate asked.

“No. But some of them look far too much like some demons, at night, without good lighting.”

“Castle?”

“I didn’t kill anyone… but a few might have been accidentally singed, a bit. By someone else. Hypothetically.” Rick smiled widely.

Kate kept frowning at him, though.

*****

“So, Mister Bancroft. Would you care to explain what exactly you were doing in Mister Miller’s house?”

Sitting next to her in the interrogation room, Rick glanced at Kate when leaned over the desk between her and Bancroft. She was a sight when she was all focused like this. Impressive. And intimidating - for the suspects. Bancroft would crack soon.

“I told you - I wanted to save the puppies he had locked up in the basement.”

“And you broke into his house for that.”

“I had to!”

“And how did you know about those puppies? His neighbours had no idea that he had been keeping such pets.”

The young man hesitated. “Ah…”

“You are currently studying biology in college.”

“Yes?”

“Wildlife Biology, to be exact. And you spent one month helping out at a preserve - working with wolves.” Kate stared straight into the kid’s eyes. “You’re almost an expert on wolves.”

“Almost? I’m top of the class!” Bancroft said with an indignant tone.

“Were top of the class - until you took a sabbatical,” Kate said, sitting down again.

“Dropped out, in other words,” Castle added. “And not even for a good reason, like having painted the deacon's car pink.” Mother had been amused even if she denied it, he was certain.

The kid glared at him, but pressed his lips together.

“We also found a stack of bills in your home.” Kate dropped the bundle on the desk. “You’re in financial troubles, aren’t you?”

“I have a temporary cash flow problem.”

“Which you wanted to solve by working part-time. You applied at several preserves, without success,” Castle said. “Not enough experience.”

“But,” Kate continued, “there was an offer from a man in need of an expert on raising wolf pups. Quite a generous one, too.”

Bancroft stared at her. Castle hoped the man would say that they couldn’t prove this - that would make the scene perfect.

“So, you accept, and begin your descent into the dark shadows of the puppy mill world,” Rick said in the same tone he used to read scary stories to Alexis. “Driven to crime by your debts and desire to work with wolves.”

“No! I didn’t know that the man had acquired the pups illegally!” Bancroft fell silent, realising too late what he had just admitted.

“And when did you realise that Mister Miller had not legally acquired those wolves?”

The man hesitated. Rick would have prodded him again, but Kate simply waited. She was right - Bancroft started to talk. “He kept saying that the permit for the pen in his backyard would soon arrive, that the basement was just a temporary solution.... I believed him, he was very convincing.”

“And he paid you well,” Rick cut in.

Bancroft looked down on the floor - Rick had been on the mark! “After a month, I started to question him. The puppies needed space. I wanted to get them to a preserve, until the pen was ready. That’s when he fired me.”

“Why didn’t you inform the authorities?” Kate asked.

The boy took another deep breath. He wasn’t looking at Kate or Rick. “I had… faked some documentation. And he knew it.”

“A college degree?”

The kid nodded. “I needed the work, and I have the knowledge and training, but without a degree, no one would be hiring me, so I thought…”

Castle nodded. A classic tale. So classic, indeed, that he’d have to twist it some, to be able to use it, or his editor would complain. Maybe add some romance… expelled after a steamy affair with a professor, and blacklisted by the jealous husband of his paramour… no, people would think it was autobiographical.

“But if you broke in to save the animals, why didn’t you leave when you discovered that the pens in the basement were empty?” Kate made a few notes on her pad.

“I saw the… remains, and I searched his house to find the names of his buyers.”

“His buyers?”

“He must have sold the meat and fur - there wasn’t enough in the house.”

“Unless he was a very big eater,” Castle added as they got up. The kid looked green in the face at that, as planned.

*****

It was already late when they returned to Kate’s desk, where Vi was sitting. On Kate’s chair, Rick noticed.

Kate glared at her, and the Slayer got up - slowly. And then she stretched. Provocatively. Rick glanced around, but he couldn’t spot Ryan or Esposito. A uniform was staring at Vi’s chest as if the man had never seen a young woman in a tight top before. Castle shook his head.

“Where are Ryan and Esposito?” Kate asked while she adjusted her chair.

“Ryan was called home by his girlfriend, and Esposito went to Lanie’s office to check on the results of her tests. Half an hour ago.”

Rick coughed, and she glared at him, as if it was his fault that the two detectives had not enthusiastically joined the demon hunting. Granted, he had jumped at the chance to finally share some of his more impressive hunting stories when he had shot the breeze with the two detective, but he hadn’t even mentioned Sunnydale. Not by name at least. Not everyone was cut out for that, anyway. Vi shouldn’t be taking it personally, but of course, she was. Not that he was commenting on that - he knew better.

Instead, he said: “Well, we could go home as well. There’s a few bookshops I’d like to check.”

“You think Miller tried to get the real deal.” Kate was closing windows on her computer.

“Yes. And I doubt that he would accept that there were no books by the Navajo, so some of the vendors might remember him.”

“First wolf blood and shit, and now moldy books with a touch of evil… my poor nose.” Vi pouted.

“You could use plugs if it’s too much for you,” Kate said. She sounded almost sincere.

“It’s nothing,” his Slayer said quickly.

“Of course.” Kate nodded.

Rick had the impression that this would be a rather tiring drive.

*****

**New York, November 2009**

“We should get paid overtime for this,” Vi said, passing the car in front of them with a very illegal manoeuvre in the middle of a crossing.

“We don’t get paid for this at all,” Rick Castle said. “We’re private consultants, as far as the police are concerned.”

“Everyone knows that consultants get paid!” his Slayer insisted.

“Actually, officially you’re not consultants. You’re just private citizens tagging along for PR reasons,” Kate remarked from the backseat.

“We have helped solve quite a few cases, though,” Castle said. “I like to think that this is at least unofficially appreciated.”

“Almost as much as your doughnut and coffee bribes,” Kate answered.

“We do their work for them, and we feed them...” Vi sighed. “I feel like we’ve adopted the NYPD.”

“Says the girl who eats more of those doughnuts than the rest of the precinct combined.” Kate was shaking her head; Rick knew that without having to glance over his shoulder. “I guess that makes you Castle’s adopted daughter.”

Rick saw Vi frown at hearing that.

“That would mean you’re the stepmother, right?” the Slayer said, and Castle clearly heard the unsaid ‘evil’.

He changed the topic before things could escalate, and in the best way he could think of: “Where do you want to stop to eat on the way?”

Of course, Vi’s enthusiastic response triggered a remark about gluttony from Kate. Rick couldn’t win.

*****

“Skin-Walkers?” The old woman, ‘Ms. Brooks’, as the owner of the ‘New Dawn’ shop had introduced herself, pushed her tiny glasses up with one finger. “We’re a respectable shop; we don’t sell books about such topics.” She raised her chin. “We respect the beliefs of our Native American brothers and sisters.”

Rick thought the curses some shamans could cast upon those who defiled their rites were a good reason to respect the Navajos’ faith, but commenting on that would have been counterproductive.

“Have you seen this man?” Kate showed the woman a picture of Miller.

Brooks peered at it, then pulled her glasses off and squinted. “Oh… him. Yes. A rather rude young man. He said he wanted to reconnect with his Native American ancestry, but if he had one drop of Native American blood in his veins, it’d have to be the result of a transfusion.” She shook her head. “I sent him on his way.”

“When was that?” Kate was remarkably professional, Rick noticed, while Vi was strolling through the shop and poking at the various trinkets on sale. Hopefully, she wouldn't break anything and claim it had been an evil item.

“Oh… six months or so ago.” The woman frowned. “I told him there were no respectable books on that topic, but he didn’t listen! He was as bad as that werewolf hunter asking around.”

“Werewolves?” Kate’s question was aimed as much at Brooks as it was at Castle, he realised.

“There haven’t been any troubles with werewolves in New York in years,” Rick said. “Why would a hunter visit?”

“And without asking for permission!” Vi growled. “Didn’t Buffy teach Cain that that you don’t hunt in a Slayer’s territory?” The sound of breaking wood interrupted her next words, and she stared at the wrecked dream catcher in her hands.

“You broke it, you bought it,” Brooks said firmly.

“More like, she broke it, I bought it,” Castle muttered.

Vi pouted while Kate tried not to laugh.

*****

“I have to grant our victim this,” Rick said a few hours and shops later, when they were walking back to his Shelby, “he certainly was persistent. He visited every shop catering to the magically-minded in New York.”

“And he made such an ass out of himself, that everyone remembered him,” Vi added.

“And he had no success,” Kate said. “And seeing as he has not shown much concern for the law when he started raising wolves, what are the odds that he tried to gain his information illegally?”

“From the Navajos?” Rick shook his head. “Slim to none. Their shamans would have… dealt with him, should he acted like he did in those shops. And not in the ‘making a deal’ meaning of the word.”

“Maybe there’s a record of an altercation at the reservation,” Kate said. “I’ll have Esposito and Ryan look into it.”

“Oh… if there’s a casino around, they’ll have a fun time sifting through all those reports,” Rick said.

“Serves them right!” Vi scoffed.

“Just because they do not return your feelings is no reason to be angry at them,” Kate said.

“What feelings?” Vi snarled.

“Wounded pride?” Rick ventured. He ignored Vi’s glare. She certainly hadn’t been serious about either of the two detectives. He cleared his throat. “In any case, we’ll have to look into the werewolf hunter rumour. Miller was killed with a silver bullet.”

“But Miller was no werewolf,” Kate pointed out.

“A hunter might not have known that,” Rick said.

“Poachers in my territory! Damn kill stealers!” Vi growled again.

“Vi, Miller was no demon; you wouldn’t have killed him.” Or so Rick hoped.

“It’s the principle of the thing!”

“Many animals are territorial,” Kate said, nodding. Which earned her a glare from Vi.

“In any case,” Castle said, “we’ll have to find out if any of the known hunters are in New York.”

“There are known werewolf hunters?” Kate raised her eyebrows.

“Known in the right circles, yes. There’s a thriving black market for werewolf pelts in Sri Lanka - don’t ask me why.” Rick chuckled. “But there aren’t that many.” It was a high-risk profession. Almost as dangerous as being a Watcher, Rick thought. “We’ll get you names to run through the system.”

“I’ll have to make up an anonymous tip again, so the D.A. won’t know that we’re following a demon hunter’s knowledge?” Kate sounded more resigned than annoyed.

“Well… it works?” Castle smiled at her.

Now she seemed annoyed. He wondered why.

“Do you really think it’s possible that a hunter mistook Miller for a werewolf?”

“If he had been wearing a fur suit, and acting like a wolf…” Richard Castle paused while he opened the door to his car for her, “I can definitely see such a thing happening.”

“Those amateurs don’t have Slayer senses, so they won’t be able to tell a furry from a furball!” Vi said, sliding into the driver’s seat with her usual grace.

“It’s not impossible to hunt demons without supernatural help,” Rick said. “Nikki Heat certainly will manage just fine using her brain and guts.”

Vi snorted. “She’ll have to get bailed out by the Vampire Hunter main character often enough.”

“I rather think that Nikki Heat will have to bail out the short-sighted, impulsive Vampire Hunter from trouble,” Kate remarked, “until she learns that not all problems can be solved with violence. Which shouldn’t take her more than, say, a dozen books to learn.”

While the two women had their proxy war in the car, Castle was very tempted to ask if they were forming ‘Team Nikki’ and “‘Team Vicky’, as he had decided to call the Vampire Hunter in his next book. He didn’t, of course - they’d gang up on him at once. At least, he told himself, Kate seemed to have warmed up to her alter ego starring in one of his novels.

Although that could just be because Vi was needling her about it. Sometimes, Kate was as competitive as a Slayer.

*****

“The lab sent their results,” Esposito announced the next morning as soon as they arrived at the bullpen. “Five months ago, there was a break-in at the Wolf Mountain Nature Center in Chenango County in upstate New York. Several of the animals escaped, and while most of them were recaptured, a few pups were never found. The hair found on Miller matches that pack, or so the tests claim.”

“Wow, that was quick. I guess everyone loves puppies, even the forensic labs,” Rick said. “I bet the FBI would love to make pupnapping a federal crime. Their funding would double.”

Ryan chuckled, but Kate was rolling her eyes. Even though that hadn’t been a dig against the Fed Ex. Well, mostly not. “Tough crowd,” he muttered.

“While it’s nice to know where his wolves came from, I doubt he was murdered in retaliation for stealing puppies,” Kate said.

“You never know… maybe the Great Wolf Spirit possessed a man to avenge this slight against his children…” Rick trailed off when he saw everyone but Vi staring at him. “I’m joking!”

There were drawbacks to having more people know the truth, he thought.

“We found out that there are werewolf hunters in New York. One of them could have killed Miller. I’ve received an anonymous tip with a few names,” Kate said.

Esposito and Ryan turned to stare at Castle at once. They were even worse at keeping a secret than Buffy! He glared at them until they cringed and turned away. At least some people reacted to his glares as they should!

After picking the jelly-filled doughnuts from the box in the break room, Castle joined Kate at her desk.

“You were right, Castle,” she said. “Here’s a report about a man who was stopped because he was carrying a rifle on his back. He had a hunting license, and told the uniforms checking him that he was carrying it to a gunsmith.”

“Who is it?”

“Gib Cain.”

*****

**New York, November 2009**

They found Gib Cain in the hotel he had given as an address to the police. That might mean that the hunter was not involved in the murder, Richard Castle thought, or he would have made a runner. He was in the lobby, reading a newspaper.

“Mister Cain? NYPD,” Kate said, showing her badge.

The man looked up from his newspaper - the National Enquirer, Castle noted - and scowled. “Is this about my rifle again? I showed you my license!” He was about fifty years old, but looked older - or more weathered, Rick thought. If Cain had been a sailor, ‘crusty’ would be a good attribute for a character patterned after him.

“You did, which is why we’re here. Where were you in between Monday 11 pm and Tuesday 2 am?” Kate asked while Rick snuck a peek at the article Cain had been reading. Bigfoot sightings? There were a number of demons behind that myth, but Castle hadn’t heard of any recent trouble with them.

“During the night of the full moon?” Cain’s scowl deepened. “I was drinking with a few acquaintances, and then I went to bed. The concierge saw me return. What’s this about?”

“A man was found shot to death with a silver bullet,” Castle said. “Sound familiar?”

“My rifle was with my gunsmith, locked up. You can ask him.”

“We will,” Kate said.

“But as a big bad werewolf hunter, you’ll have a backup piece.” Rick smiled. “Just in case your rifle gets damaged… or bent.”

The hunter’s eyes widened, and he glanced from Castle to Vi and back. “Slayer,” he hissed.

“Right on the mark,” Vi said, widely grinning. “And you’re poaching in my territory!”

“I’m not hunting in any Slayer’s territory!” Cain spat out. “Even though there are far too many of you around these days. Used to be, there was one of you, on the Hellmouth, and the rest of the world offered plenty of game! Nowadays it’s worse than trying to hunt big game in Africa!”

“Without us, you’d be demon chow!” Vi hissed.

Rick stepped between the two. “Now, now… we know you’ve cleaned up your act since your run-in with Buffy - she was just in New York, by the way,” he added, and Cain cringed. “But you have to admit that your presence in our fair city, right when a man is shot with a silver bullet, raises some questions.”

“Especially since we haven’t had any troubles with rabid werewolves!” Vi said, moving to Castle’s side to glare at the man.

“Really? I heard differently from the locals. I was given a list of feral werewolves, even!” Cain sneered at them.

Rick exchanged a glance with Vi. That was a first.

“And who gave you this list?” Kate cut in. The man hesitated “You can tell us here, or on the precinct.”

“Your choice!” Castle said, smiling brightly.

“Brooks.”

Castle exchanged a surprised glance with Kate. “The owner of the ‘New Dawn’ shop?” he asked, to make certain they were talking about the same person.

“Yes. But I wasn’t about to hunt in a Slayer’s territory. Not even if they didn’t keep it safe for the rest of the humans.”

“Do you have that list?” Kate asked while Castle took a step to the side, blocking Vi while she snarled at the hunter.

“Yeah.” The man pulled out a rather grimy note, with five names on it.

Martin Miller was the second from the top.

“Don’t leave the city,” Kate told the hunter before they left.

*****

“The names on the list don’t match up with known werewolves,” Castle said, after a quick check on his phone back in the car. Cain had sounded sincere - resentful, but sincere - back then.

“You have a list of known werewolves?” Kate asked. “Of course you do,” she added before Castle could confirm it.

“Most of the werewolves are perfectly nice people who lock themselves up in their basement three nights per month,” Rick said. “Not any more dangerous than people who practise bondage. Who, I have to add, are not dangerous at all. But every once in a while, someone gets bitten who likes being a werewolf. It makes hunting those down easier if you can quickly check the other werewolves.”

“Do they all have a unique scent?” Kate asked. Almost innocently, Rick thought.

“Yes,” he said while Vi ground her teeth. He quickly continued before his Slayer could retort. “So… we have a list of names of allegedly dangerous werewolves, given to a known werewolf hunter by a woman ‘in the know’ about the supernatural. Who then complains to us about a rude hunter asking around. Why does that sound like a set-up?”

“Because it is one? I knew you couldn’t trust that woman! She so scammed me with her far too easily breakable shoddy merchandise!” Vi exclaimed.

“Where’s the motive, though?” Kate asked. “It’s not enough for a case yet. Nor for one of your ‘interventions’.”

“We’ll need to look into Mrs. Brooks again,” Rick said. “There has to be a connection. People don’t get murdered for being rude when asking about books.”

“Librarians might dream about it, though,” Vi said. “Giles certainly did.”

Castle cleared his throat. This wasn’t the time to speculate about Rupert’s inclinations. “So, we need investigate Mrs. Brooks. And without using supernatural or illegal means,” he added, for Vi’s benefit. “This looks like a mostly mundane case, and should be solved through the proper channels.”

“Boring and inefficient channels,” Vi complained.

“You might be surprised at what modern forensics can achieve,” Kate said from the backseat. She sounded quite smug.

*****

“So? What has CSI: New York found out?” Vi could sound really smug as well, Rick noted.

“That Miller visited Brook’s shop the day before he died,” Kate answered, dropping grainy traffic cam pictures on her desk. “We found his car, but forensics hasn’t found anything in it.”

“Isn’t that enough for us to interrogate her?” Vi asked.

“It would be - but if she lawyers up, we have nothing to hold her for. We might get a search warrant, but if we do not find anything in her shop…” Kate trailed off with a frown.

“See? That’s why it’s boring and inefficient!” Vi said. “We should just go in and shake her until she confesses. Poaching in my city…”

“Miller wasn’t a demon or werewolf,” Rick pointed out.

“It’s the principle of the thing!” Vi pouted.

“If only you were that principled when dealing with the law,” Kate said.

“I am!” Vi perked up. “I always ignore the law if it gets into the way of slaying!”

Rick sighed. “So, since he was found naked and meant to be mistaken for a werewolf, we can assume someone took his suit.”

“Brooks!” Vi said.

“She probably disposed of the suit already,” Kate said.

Castle kicked Vi, who was sitting on Kate’s desk again, before she could utter a snarky remark. “But she has to have been there, too. And she must have used a car.”

“Not hers, though.” Kate said, picking up his thought. “Not a cab either, nor a borrowed one or a rental - that would have left witnesses.”

Rick nodded. “I don’t think she’d risk stealing a car...”

“...which leaves buying a used car just for the occasion,” Kate finished.

“A very cheap used car,” Vi added. “She’s a greedy one!”

*****

“Bingo!” Esposito said, waving a fax around a few hours later. “A woman matching Brooks’s description bought a used car at a dealer in New Jersey - under a fake name. The DMV noticed the discrepancies in the paperwork filed by the dealer. We’ve got traffic cam footage of the car near the location of the murder, and we’re checking if we can find where she ditched the car.”

“Foiled by the efficiency of the bureaucracy!” Rick said.

For some reason Vi glared at him.

“Can we go and arrest the poacher now?” his Slayer asked.

“We’ll need to find the car first, to nail the case shut,” Kate explained. “Be patient.”

“I think we’ll take a stroll through the usual haunts,” Castle said. “Visit a few bars, maybe, while we wait.”

“Oh!” Vi perked up - as usual for her when faced with the prospect of violence. Castle wouldn’t have minded waiting at the precinct, but Vi was getting a bit too impatient. A patrol would do her good.

“Text us once you have the car?”

“Sure, Castle. Take the girl for a walk.”

Castle had to push Vi out of the precinct after that.

*****

“We found the car, we found blood inside, and we could link it to Brooks through witnesses, and fibres found inside the car that match her clothes,” Kate explained during dinner the next day. “She confessed already. Too bad you weren’t there at the arrest.”

Rick, propping up his sprained ankle on a cushion, couldn’t tell if she was truly sympathetic or not. He decided to assume the best. “Thanks.”

“What did that?” Kate nodded at his leg.

“He stumbled while dodging a claw swipe from a Polgara Demon,” Vi said, sliding on her seat.

“The floor gave way,” Castle said.

“Clumsy,” Vi whispered to Kate loud enough for Castle to hear.

“And the eye?” Kate asked, pointing at his head.

“Dumb jock hit him while we were saving the idiot from a vampire posing as his girlfriend,” Vi said.

It wasn’t his best night, Castle thought, but everyone had a day or night off once in a while. He coughed. “So… why did our dear Mrs. Brooks kill Miller?”

“For money.”

“She didn’t strike me as a hit-woman,” Castle said. Although a harmless-looking old woman who worked as a professional assassin would make a great character for a novel!

“Her money. Apparently, Miller had found out that she was dealing with poachers…”

“I knew it!” Vi said gleefully.

“... the normal kind of poachers,” Kate clarified, “and blackmailed her into supporting his ‘ignorant attempt to become a skin-walker’ until she felt that killing him was better than paying him off. So she sold him a lie about a ritual, waited until he was 'sky-clad', and shot him, trying to make it look like a werewolf hunt gone wrong.”

“Which, given her greed, was probably five minutes after he started!”

Vi was still carrying a grudge for that broken piece of merchandise, Castle thought.

He smiled. “So… case closed! And we didn’t even have to threaten her with telling Cain who tried to frame him for murder!”

Kate was glaring at him.

“What?”

*****

 


	22. The Kidnapping Part 1

**New York, December 2009**

“Either there is an apocalypse looming,” Rick Castle said out loud, looking at the display on his desk phone, “or someone’s hacked my computer.” He had been on the way to the kitchen for a late breakfast when he had noticed that his phone was blinking.

“Hm?” Alexis asked, less than eloquently, from the door to his office, waving with a paper bag containing fresh croissants and doughnuts.

“Six missed calls, all of them from London,” he explained, pointing at the phone.

“Willow did the security on all our computers; no one can hack through her code,” Alexis declared, digging into the bag and retrieving a croissant while she walked towards him.

“Unless it was Willow herself who did the hacking.” If that could be called hacking - she had full access after all. He reached for the bag, and she dropped it on his desk while looking at the phone herself.

“Why didn’t you take the calls?” His daughter frowned. “Wait… they called at five in the morning? That has to be important!”

“If it was important they would have called Vi when I didn’t answer,” Rick said. “Since she didn’t shake me out of my bed, I can only conclude that there is no apocalypse scheduled. Which means that someone has to have hacked my computer.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” Alexis asked, between two bites from her croissant. Unlike him, who was in his pajamas and a dressing gown, she was dressed in street clothes already. But she hadn’t pulled an all-nighter either.

“Because I sent the finished draft of ‘Heat Wave’ to my publisher at 4.47 am this morning.” In hindsight, Rick thought, he shouldn’t have told the Scoobies that in his new series, there would be more than one vampire hunter at a time. They had all taken this to mean that they might appear in the book as well, even if only as a cameo. As if he would do that! Well… maybe in the next book.

“Oh. OH!” Alexis was glaring at him. “You told Gran two days ago that you were stuck on the final scene!”

“I was,” he defended himself. “But I had a breakthrough last evening, and I finished the book in one go!” Well, the first draft. The editors would wreak havoc on it - especially on a new series. He’d probably have to rewrite half of it. But a good bestselling author listened to their editors if they wanted to keep being a good bestselling author and to avoid becoming a mediocre bestselling author with a lot of indiscriminating fans.

“And you didn’t tell me? Dad!” She was frowning at him, hands on her hips. It would have looked more impressive if she hadn’t been chewing hastily on the rest of her croissant a moment before.

“I just woke up!”

“You didn’t wake up when Kate left?” She looked at him as if she expected him to lie to her!.

“No.” It didn’t count when you fell asleep again after five minutes of semi-coherence.

“Well, you’re awake now. Send me a copy!”

Claiming that his publisher had sworn him to secrecy wouldn’t work - it hadn’t worked since Alexis had started to read his contracts five years ago. Rick bought himself some time by picking a doughnut before answering. “It’s just the first draft. You know how much a book changes until the final version.”

“Yes. Which is why I want to read the first draft, so any urgently needed changes can be implemented early on.” Her smile looked disturbingly like Vi’s when his Slayer was in a particularly belligerent mood.

“‘Urgently needed changes’?”

“Just in case you modeled a character after me.” And she showed her teeth. Vi definitely was a bad influence on his daughter - the wrong kind of bad influence, to be exact. Why had he ever thought that the Scoobies would be good for his too-serious daughter?

“I didn’t!” He hadn’t. Really.

“Not consciously, maybe. But you do remember the Loremaster’s daughter in ‘Munich Massacre’, don’t you?”

“That character was just a generic cute kid.” That was his story, and he as sticking to it!

“A kid my age, described as ‘precocious’. With red hair.” She put both her hands on his desk and leaned forward - a very familiar looking pose, he thought, another thing to blame Vi for. “And a stuffed rabbit named ‘Mister Bunny’.”

“Alright! That time, I may have been influenced - subconsciously - by my absolutely wonderful experiences raising my precious and precocious daughter,” he admitted, “but I can assure you that nothing like that happened in this book.”

“What did you tell me when it came to boys and their promises, Dad?”

He blinked. He had told her a lot about boys over the years. “Um…”

“‘Trust, but verify’. And you certainly count as a boy,” she added.

“I don’t!” he protested.

She merely glanced at his laser tag gear in response. Damn!

He sighed. “Don’t tell anyone that I sent you a copy, though. I don’t want to be called out for favoritism.” Or was that nepotism when it came to his daughter?

“Favoritism?” Vi peeked inside his office. “Oh, doughnuts!”

Rick managed to pull his hand away before he lost it when his Slayer made a grab for the bag. Four seconds and two unhealthy bakery products later, she blinked. “What was that about not telling anyone?”

He pleaded silently with his daughter to remain silent. They shared a secret as father and daughter. It was a bonding experience.

“Dad finished the first draft of Heat Wave,” Alexis said. When Vi gasped and stared at Castle, his daughter used the opportunity to grab another croissant from the bag before leaving him to the tender mercies of his Slayer.

She definitely had inherited that ruthlessness from her mother, Castle thought.

*****

“You finally managed to get up, Castle?” Kate greeted him when he entered the 12th Precinct.

Her pointed glance to the clock at the wall was a fine touch, Rick thought. Apparently, his girlfriend - and, he hoped, soon-to-be fiancée - hadn’t been as understanding of his need to write all night when inspiration had finally hit him as he had thought this morning.

He handed her a cup of coffee - just as she liked it - and sank into his usual chair, sighing. He really should replace that one with a more comfortable one, maybe one with a massage function, for those days after a demon hunt left him sore and stiff. “I actually got up earlier than it may appear, but my family and friends ganged up on me, and it took me some time to escape from their clutches.”

“Speaking of clutches - were is Vi?” Kate looked at the entrance to the bullpen.

“She is staying home today.” He had finished his own cup on the drive there already - without Vi at the wheel, the trip took longer than usual - and he needed more coffee. But unless he decided to buy a coffee maker for the precinct right now, he’d have to either drink the brown dishwater in the break room, or go outside. Wasn’t there some coffee delivery service?

“Oh? She wasn’t hurt, was she?” Kate asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Huh?” He blinked. “No, no. She’s reading.”

“Reading?” Kate looked puzzled for less than a second. Then her eyes widened. “You finished your book!”

“The first draft,” he corrected her, almost automatically at this point. “Very raw. Very much not a finished work. You’d lose all respect for me as a writer if you read that mess, trust me. Almost a drunken ramble, in parts.”

Kate didn’t say anything, just stared at him with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t buying his excuses. Story of his life. And especially, of this morning.

“I’ll mail the draft to you as soon as I get home,” he said.

She smiled at him, and he felt his heart lift. What was one more critic, anyway? Feedback was good! Oh, wait. Kate was the model for the main character. And he had taken certain liberties…

Why was here never a case when you needed a distraction?

*****

Four hours later, he cursed himself for thinking that. He should have known better than to tempt Murphy.

Alexis was missing.

*****

**New York, December 2009**

On the TV on the bullpen, a pillar of smoke was rising into the Sky above New York. Police and News helicopters were circling it, and the reporter on the ground was repeating what they already knew: There had been an explosion on the roof of Marlowe Prep. No reports of any victims, yet. Very little visible damage to the building. The first experts were talking about a hoax. Or a warning by a terrorist group.

Rick Castle knew better. This wasn’t a hoax - Marlowe Prep was his daughter’s school, and she wasn’t answering her phone. Alexis was smart; after such an explosion, she would immediately contact him, Vi or his mother. Maybe even Mary. Even if she had lost her phone, she would call from someone else’s. Or find a landline.

But she wasn’t answering her phone, and she wasn’t calling. Which meant she couldn’t call. Which meant…

“Alexis has been kidnapped!” he yelled at Kate.

“What?” The detective turned around and stared at him.

He pointed at the TV. “That’s her school. It happened right when she was leaving, and I can’t reach her on the phone.” He held up his own cell phone, which was once more dialing his daughter’s number.

“Are you certain?”

He controlled himself, even if he wanted to yell how obvious it was. “Her grandparents died in a terrorist attack on a building. If a bomb went off at her school she would call me - with her phone, or someone else’s,” Castle said.

“He grandparents died in a terrorist attack?” Ryan was staring at him. Rick realised that he was now the center of attention.

“London 2002. Entire building gone.” He remembered how afraid Alexis had been for her mother, that day.

“The school was barely scratched,” Esposito commented.

“Plenty of students will have run away in panic,” Ryan said, “and forgot to call their parents.”

“Not Alexis,” Castle insisted. “And even if she did - she’s not answering her phone. You know how attached teenagers are to their phones; she would have noticed by now if she had simply lost it.” If it hadn’t been Alexis, he would have laughed at that.

“That’s true,” someone said in the background. “They would take pictures of themselves in front of the school.”

Not Alexis, Castle wanted to say. He didn’t - the faster the police accepted that this was a kidnapping, and not some hoax, the better. His daughter’s life depended on it.

Kate looked at him for a second, then nodded. “Start the investigation. I’ll take responsibility.”

“Isn’t that usually my line?” Relief made him blurt the words out, but no one laughed.

*****

“Their cell phones were found in a dumpster near her school.” That was Esposito, just back from canvassing the area around Alexis’s school, holding up a plastic bag containing two phones.

Kate Beckett nodded at him. “Good. Pass them to the IT department; they might find something in the memory.” Alexis might have managed to set the phone on recording, Kate thought - the girl had received training for such a situation, given her family’s background. She didn’t know anything, yet, about the other girl who had been kidnapped, Aicha El-Haddad.

As soon as Esposito had left, Ryan leaned back from his computer and yelled to her: “I’ve got the recordings from the security camera of the electronics shop on the other side of the street.”

She hurried over to him and looked over his shoulder.

“See? Here are the two girls leaving school together.”

“They’re not leaving together,” Kate corrected him. “They aren’t talking to each other or even looking at each other; they’re just walking into the same direction at the same time.”

He nodded, then pointed at the screen. “Look at this van. Drives slowly, and stops when it passes the two. And right at that moment, there’s an explosion on the roof of the school.”

That made everyone turn around and look at the school, away from the van. And started a panic. Kate saw the students starting to run and the van drive on - and Alexis and El-Haddad had vanished. “Did you get the van’s license plates?”

“Yes. According to the registry, they belong to a flower service in Queens.” Ryan’s face told Kate that he didn’t think that anything would come of that.

She agreed. “Probably stolen. Send a uniform to check up on the shop.” They couldn’t afford to miss any lead, no matter how improbable. Maybe there was a fingerprint on the delivery van the plates had been taken from. Such things happened, after all.

“Right.”

“And track the van’s route through traffic cameras.”

He nodded. That was far more likely to get them results - but it would take time, or a lot of luck. And the longer it took them to trace the van, the further the kidnappers would have gone.

She went back to her whiteboard and added the results from her colleagues. The board was still rather empty, containing nothing more than a map of the school and pictures of the two victims, Alexis Castle and Aicha El-Haddad. Pictures of their parents. Both of them rich - the El-Haddads significantly more so than Castle. A fact Kate would have mentioned with a smirk during any other investigation.

But it wasn’t just any investigation. Kate knew Alexis. And and liked the girl. They might even become family one day, as Castle had been hinting at lately in his not so subtle ways. This was personal. So personal that Kate knew that she should withdraw from the case - she wasn’t objective enough. But if she did that, who would deal with Castle and keep him from going out of control? Vi certainly wouldn’t; the Slayer would back Castle to the hilt. Probably literally, too.

She shook her head and focused on the case again. She was a detective, she could, had to do this.

The two girls had no ties - Castle and their classmates had confirmed that. So, one had been the kidnapping target, and the other… had been taken as well. Using a spectacular distraction that was bound to draw attention from both the news and federal agencies. Even if the bomb had been an ‘overgrown firework’, as the precinct’s expert had called it, at least some agencies were going to treat this as a terrorist attack.

Why would anyone do this? Why draw that much attention? The rest of the kidnapping had been professional. This wasn’t just a kidnapping. This was a demonstration. But who would go to those lengths, and for whom? Castle, or El-Haddad?

She walked over to Ryan. “I need a thorough background check of the El-Haddads!”

He looked at her. “I’m still tracking the van.”

“Pass that to IT. This is more important.”

“Are you certain?”

Kate nodded. It made sense, and her gut agreed. “People who fake a terrorist attack as a distraction won’t be caught in their first getaway vehicle. Pass that task on and get on El-Haddad.”

She saw Esposito return to the bullpen. “Esposito! We’re going to the El-Haddads.”

She saw him shake his head, and frowned. What… Then she saw the men and women in familiar (and rather cheap, Castle would say) suits enter the precinct. Feds, here to take over.

They were faster than usual - but then, this was a potential terror attack as well as a kidnapping case.

Kate sighed. She hoped Castle wouldn’t antagonise them. Or they him.

Then she saw Will among the agents and winced. Her hope had just died.

*****

“Mister Castle.”

“Agent Sorenson.” During any other investigation, Rick Castle would have made a joke about the man’s name, or asked how Alaska had been this time of the year. But this wasn’t any other investigation, and he had far more important things to do than cut down Agent Jealouson’s ego.

“You know each other?” the female agent asked. Walker something.

“We’ve met,” the Fed Ex said. “Unfortunately.”

On the other hand, the man had just started it. And Castle always worked better when he didn’t have to control his tongue too much. “We’ve worked together on one or two cases before,” he said with a wide smile.

“I was under the impression that you were an author.” Walker’s face showed what she thought of authors.

“That’s what my bulletproof vest says. Actually, it says ‘Writer’, but close enough for government work.” He smiled. Behind the two Feds, Kate was baring her teeth at him. Maybe he should cut the snark down a bit? No.

“This is a federal case. What deal you have with the local police department doesn’t matter now. But even if you were a federal agent you are far too close to the case to be part of the investigation,” Walker stated.

“And it’s on American soil,” Fed Ex added. The man still thought Castle was working for the CIA, then. And judging by the puzzled look of his colleague, he hadn’t shared that suspicion.

“Trust me, Agent, breaking the law is the furthest thing from my mind.” He wasn’t even lying - until Alexis was safe, he didn’t care at all about laws at all. “You have my number, or Kate’s, if you need me.”

He turned to leave.

“Mister Castle! We require your cooperation in this case. Your daughter’s life is in danger,” Walker said.

“I know. I’ll call you should the kidnapper contact me. And no, you don’t need to tap my phone - it’s already set up.” He nodded at them, then left the precinct.

“Castle!” Kate hissed behind him before he reached the elevator. “What are you doing?”

“Going home.”

He entered the elevator. Kate followed him. When the doors had closed, she asked: “Where’s Vi?”

“Shaking down the usual suspects for information.” Without success so far.

“And what will you be doing? You’re not about to wait at home for her or us.”

“I’ll actually be waiting at home,” he corrected her.

She blinked, then her eyes widened. “You called London.”

Castle nodded. “The Council’s prepared for such an event. Willow will track Alexis with a spell.” He grinned with more humour than he felt. “They’ll arrive in two hours.”

Which would be the longest two hours of his life.

*****

**New York, December 2009**

“No, Agent Smith, you do not need to be here. As I’ve told your superior before, I’ve set up a relay, so you will be informed at once and can listen in, should the kidnappers call me to name their demands.” Richard Castle was glaring at the two Feds standing in front of his door. That was the second time they had come to bother him.

“Mister Castle, I understand that you are under a lot of stress. Anyone in your situation would be. But we cannot help your daughter if you do not cooperate with us,” the other agent - a young woman, Hutchins - said. “Please, let us do our job.”

He was tempted to shout at them that he could deal with stress much better than they could - had stared into hell itself, and had fought the First Evil - but that might make them try to have him committed, so he controlled himself. “I am cooperating with you. I am providing you with all the information and access you need to do your job. But you do not need to do your job in my home! You can sit and wait for a call on my landline in one of your black vans outside!” He really couldn’t have any Feds in his flat when the Scoobies arrived. That wouldn’t end well.

The female Fed flinched, so Rick probably hadn’t sounded as calm as he thought. Smith, though - and that Fed only needed sunglasses and about twenty more years and he would fit into M.I.B. - looked distinctly unamused. In the Royal sense of the word. “Mister Castle. It’s not just about your daughter. The circumstances of this kidnapping indicate a strong possibility that an organised group with more than just monetary goals is involved. And seeing as your ex-wife’s parents were killed in a terrorist attack seven years ago, an attack which has never been solved, I have to point out, you and the rest of your family could be in danger as well. You need our protection.”

Castle took it back - no one in the movie would have talked like that. He didn’t mention it, though. Nor did he point out that the only danger his mother was currently facing was wearing a hole in the floor of his flat. Instead he smiled at the two Feds. “I do believe that I’m already as safe as I can be, Agent Smith.”

“Yep, he is!” Vi said, right behind the two Feds. Completely surprised - Hutchkins loudly gasped - they whirled around. Smith even went for his gun, but Vi grabbed his arm and held it in place. “You’re a bit jumpy, aren’tcha?” Her toothy grin would have made even a Polgara Demon jumpy, Castle thought.

“My bodyguard, Miss O’Malley,” he said with a wide smile. “As you can see, she’s easily able to guarantee my security.” Rick didn’t have to add ‘much better than you two idiots’ - they understood his meaning perfectly well, judging by their expressions. “Now, please leave and start doing your job.” He waited until they had gone a few steps, then called after them: “And tell Agent Sorenson that I don’t need spies in my flat!”

Once inside his flat, he sighed. “Did you find out anything from the local demons?” If she had, she would have called him, but he had to ask anyway.

Vi shook her head. “Nothing. And I was thorough. Either those guys are new in town, or they have no ties to the resident scum.”

“Not to the resident demon scum,” Rick amended her statement. “But this looks too organised for a group of strangers not familiar with New York.”

Mother appeared on top of the stairs, a glass in hand. Castle hoped it was her first or second. She slowly descended. “I take it there have been no news.”

Vi shook her head. “Busting demon heads was a bust.”

“And the Feds are as useless as if this was a typical crime drama,” Castle added.

“Speaking of, where’s our detective?” Vi asked, making a show of sniffing the air.

Castle overlooked her attitude - she was as tense as he was, and needed the release it provided. “Kate’s picking up the Scoobies at the airport.”

“Oh? I’d wondered if you’d spring for a chopper.” Vi slid out of her leather jacket and threw it on the backrest of the couch, revealing the harness for her Glock and for the various blades she wore underneath. It covered almost as much skin as her tank top. If Alexis started to follow her example… then he would be happy beyond belief because that would mean she would have returned safely.

“No, that would draw too much attention.” He had actually considered that, but the time gained would have been marginal, since there was no good landing spot near his flat. And the Scoobies rappelling from a hovering helicopter definitely would draw too much attention. Especially if they were carrying their usual assortment of weapons.

“We’ll have to hope that there won’t be a traffic jam,” Vi commented, heading to the kitchen to raid his fridge.

“If that happens I have it on good authority that it would justify using the siren in her car,” Castle responded.

“Really?” Vi was leaning back so her head peaked out from behind the fridge’s open door. “She’d break the law for us?

“It’s not exactly breaking the law,” Rick retorted. “Just… stretching it a bit.”

“I’ll remember that next time I get a traffic ticket!” Vi yelled back while grabbing the ingredients for a sandwich. Or three. Feeding her was a bigger drain on his grocery budget than restocking his wine cellar after one of Mother’s parties.

He stared at the clock at the wall, then checked the time on his phone. That said the same: Eighty-five more minutes until the plane arrived. His phone also informed him that he hadn’t received any calls since he sent all information he had to the Scoobies thirty minutes ago. It looked like the Feds had - finally! - gotten his message.

The doorbell rang again.

Or not, Castle thought, clenching his teeth. If they couldn’t take a polite hint, maybe they needed an impolite hint? Vi throwing them out into the street, headfirst, might do the job. Maybe they tried to enter, and he could claim self-defence too?

He reached the door and checked the spyglass. It wasn’t the Feds, but an old man. He could see his reflection, so he wasn’t a vampire. Full head of white hair. Good suit, a class above the usual federal suit - had the government a special agency to procure them in bulk? He buried the stray thought and checked the screen next to the door for the cameras covering the hallways. No one was waiting around the corner. “We’ve got a stranger in front of the door,” he announced.

Vi was at his side in a second, swallowing what was probably one half of a footlong sandwich as she drew her gun and loosened the short sword in its sheath on her back. “Ready.”

He checked that Mother had retreated from the living room, then nodded and opened the door. “Yes?” Maybe it was a fan. Or someone looking for his neighbour. Both had happened before.

“Mister Castle?”

Vi pushed Castle to the side before he could answer and pointed her gun straight at the man. “He’s armed. Three guns.” She sniffed the air. “And he has recently fired one!” Not a demon, or she would have said so.

For an old man faced with a large-calibre pistol aimed at his head - a pistol in the hands of a decidedly hostile Slayer - the stranger showed a remarkable lack of a reaction. He slowly raised his hands. “I don’t mean you or yours any harm, Miss O’Malley,” he said in a calm voice - much calmer than Castle would have been in his situation. And he knew Vi’s name. Granted, so did everyone who read the yellow press’s society pages, but still - something fishy was going on. Castle’s gut told him so.

“Who’re you?” Rick asked

“Hunt. Jackson Hunt.”

Funny guy, Castle thought. Too bad he wasn’t in the mood to laugh. Hunt - if that was his name - sounded vaguely familiar, though. He was the right age for a Watcher of the old generation, but his accent was American. Castle would have known if the Council had had a fellow American among their ranks before Sunnydale - he had looked into that. Rick had his hand near his own gun. The man was carrying more weapons than the Feds, after all. And he was much too calm to be harmless. “What do you want?”

“I’m here because of Alexis’s kidnapping,” Hunt said. When Vi started to growl, he quickly added: “I didn’t kidnap her! I’m here to help!”

So, he wasn’t as unflappable as he had first appeared, Castle thought, with no small amount of satisfaction - it would have been bad if an old man was more cold-blooded than a veteran Watcher. He narrowed his eyes and was about to tell the man to slowly step inside the flat when he heard Mother gasp behind him and a glass shatter on the floor.

Hunt smiled, rather weakly, Castle noticed. “Hello, Martha.”

Rick glanced at his mother. She was gaping at Hunt, one hand pressed to her lips. “You know him?” he asked her, already dreading her answer, given how shaken she was.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and slowly inclined her head. “Yes, I do.” She turned her head to look at Rick.

“Richard, he’s your father.”

*****

**New York, December 2009**

His father! Hunt was his father! The father Richard Castle had never known. The father who had left his mother after one night. The father Mother had never talked about. The… Castle blinked, closed his mouth, and focused on Hunt. Now that he knew, he could see the roguish charm and class evident in the older man’s features. His father!

Whom Vi was still pointing her gun at. Who apparently knew about Alexis’s kidnapping. And carried three guns of his own. Castle blinked again, then narrowed his eyes. “I don’t suppose your surprising visit is closely related to my daughter’s kidnapping.”

“I just told you that,” Hunt retorted, with a rather too familiar expression. Mother even was faintly smiling!

“What I mean is that I can’t help but thinking that without Alexis’s disappearance, you would not have reappeared after forty-one years.” And four months, but who was counting? “You haven’t bothered to visit at all, after all.” He wasn’t bitter, not really. Anyone in his place would feel the same.

Hunt sighed, and, for a moment, looked far older than before. Less Sean Connery in ‘Never Say Never Again’ or ‘Hunt for Red October’, and more like… had Connery ever looked really old? And was Castle’s subconsciousness trying to tell him something with all those tangents his thoughts came up with? “I think this is something we should better discuss while sitting down. And maybe without weapons pointed at each other,” Hunt added with a glance at Vi.

The Slayer scoffed. “Not as long as you’re armed!”

Castle saw Mother close her mouth - she must have realised that there was no way Vi would drop her guard. Not now. Not after Alexis had been kidnapped. Which wasn’t her fault at all, Castle knew. But he also knew that telling her that wouldn’t help either.

Fortunately, Hunt nodded. “That’s acceptable. I assume you want to remove them?” He hadn’t lowered his hands yet.

“Yes. Don’t move.” Vi all but snarled, and started to frisk him. For a normal human, getting so close with a gun would be a mistake. But she was a Slayer - they were even more dangerous up close and personal.

Hunt either knew this, or hadn’t any plans to attack them, and therefore nothing to worry about being disarmed. Either way, he didn’t move a muscle until Vi had divested him of three pistols - a Heckler & Koch USP, a Glock 26 or 27, and a Derringer-looking hold-out - and two knives.

After sniffing once again, Vi stepped back. “He’s clean now.”

Castle looked at her gun and raised his eyebrows. Pouting, she lowered it. “Let’s sit down then,” he said and gestured at the couch.

Once everyone had taken a seat - Vi on the armrest of Castle’s couch, ready to shoot Hunt in case he tried something, or maybe to pounce and strangle him; Slayers were fond of melee combat, after all - Hunt cleared his throat and started to talk. “You’re probably wondering why I didn’t contact you until now.”

“I’m currently more wondering what you know about my daughter’s kidnapping,” Rick said. His personal issues could wait until Alexis was safe. He had been fine without a father for over forty years; he could wait a bit longer.

“It’s related,” Hunt said. “I’m working for the government. I… solve problems.”

“With your guns,” Castle said. His father was a secret agent. As he had imagined as a kid.

“Yes.” Hunt glanced at Vi, then at Rick. “A job I think with which you are more than a little familiar as well.”

Vi snorted, and Castle knew she was grinning now. “I’m doing the actual work!” Slayers!

“You weren’t when he started, though,” Hunt retorted. Rick wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but his father sounded almost proud. How much did he know about what they really did? “Back then he worked with Alexis’s mother. Who recruited him for her agency.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate, Rick thought, but close enough. “London,” he said, nodding as if that said everything.

“I didn’t realise exactly what organisation you had joined until it was too late,” Hunt admitted. “I hindsight, I should have arranged for your recruitment. It would have made things… easier,” he added with a glance at Rick’s mother.

“You’ve been keeping tabs on us for a while then,” Rick said. That was… disconcerting.

“Since I heard of your birth.” Hunt smiled at Rick’s mother. “I had to leave on a mission after… you know. And I didn’t return until he had been born already.”

“Why didn’t you visit?” Mother asked. She was hiding it well, but Rick could tell that she was very fragile right now. First the kidnapping, then this...

“I’m in a very dangerous business. If I had made contact with you, you would have been in danger too.”

Hunt’s smile looked sincere, but Castle didn’t believe him. He knew about dangerous business, every Council member did, and he hadn’t let that stop him from having a family. But his personal issues were not as important as Alexis right now, he reminded himself. Still… “After I started to work for London I was in a rather dangerous business as well.” The implication was clear.

“Yes. But you were working for London. The British are not exactly the other side, but for all our ‘special relationship’, we don’t exactly work that closely together in the kind of business for which I am usually needed. And when I tried to do more than keep tabs on you, feel out the situation, I was quite strongly warned away by my superiors.” He chuckled, once. “I had to use private contacts to keep track of you - and quite loosely, too.”

So, he didn’t know, Rick thought. He probably thought Castle was working for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Well, it could be possible - he certainly was charming and handsome enough for a double-oh agent! He snorted when he realised that his father probably had made the same assumption Kate had made, and almost hummed the intro of ‘The Avengers’.

That seemed to surprise Hunt, and his father narrowed his eyes. Rick gestured. “Nothing. So… you knew I was involved in some British business, and you kept your distance. On orders from your superiors, too.” Which was a very convenient excuse - although not an implausible one.

“Yes. I kept up with the more public part of your life, of course. Your marriage. The birth of my granddaughter. Your books. Your apparent retirement.”

His tone told Castle that he didn’t think Rick had actually retired from the Council. Castle glanced at the clock again. Still more than an hour left, but if they went over his entire life, especially the whole fight against the First Evil, they’d still be talking around the real issue when the Scoobies arrived. Time to cut to the chase. So to speak. “Leaving my career aside, you think Alexis’s kidnapping is connected to you.”

“Yes.” Hunt nodded. “By using a bomb as a distraction, the kidnappers ensured that every media in the USA, maybe the world, would report the incident. They ensured that no matter where I was, I would know about it at once. Even if the kidnapping would not be reported, I would recognise my granddaughter’s school.”

That sounded… plausible. Not impossible, at least, Rick had to admit. Better than his own theories.

“So, Alexis is in danger because of your secret agent work?” Vi said, glaring at Hunt.

“Vi.” Castle’s mother looked at the Slayer, and to Rick’s surprise, Vi relented. A little, at least. She didn’t apologise, of course.

“I strongly suspect that this is the case,” Hunt said. “Though I cannot yet say who is behind them. The group I was investigating didn’t have the resources for such an operation. Nor the skill.”

“So it’s related to your past work.” Castle rubbed his chin. “Unless this is all a coincidence.”

Hunt scoffed at that notion.

“That leaves us with… how many dozen suspects?” Rick went on. If his father had been a secret agent for more than four decades…

“I didn’t leave many loose ends when working.”

His father sounded almost proud of that, Castle thought. But then, Rick had a similar attitude towards dealing with demons. They might be more alike than he might like. But Rick would never leave his family under the pretext of keeping them safe. “If this is aimed at you, they’ll plan to contact you,” he said. “And since you’re so hard to get ahold of,” - he couldn’t keep the bitterness completely out of his tone - “they’ll do so through me.”

“Yes.”

“Unless they simply want to hurt you through Alexis.” Rick hated to say it, but he had to mention that possibility. To go as far as fake a terror attack on US soil… no sane people would do that.

Mother gasped and Vi snarled - and pierced the upholstery of the couch’s armrest with her bare fingers. Hunt didn’t show any reaction other than a slow nod, but his expression probably mirrored Castle’s. Whoever hurt Alexis would pay for it. With their lives.

Rick took a deep breath. “I’ve called in a few of my colleagues. They’ll arrive in about an hour, and they’ll track Alexis’s location.” They’d also check Hunt’s story, but he didn’t think he should mention that.

Hunt raised his eyebrows. “London?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been warned to stay away from them, even after you started to work in New York with Miss O’Malley.” And if that wasn’t fishing for information, Castle didn’t know what was.

“This is personal. Washington will understand that.” They knew better than to mess with the Council.

His father looked sceptical, and Rick grinned. “You don’t know what exactly ‘London’ does, do you?”

“Covert ops. ‘Problem solving’. World-wide. Often using rather young, but highly trained  female operatives,” Hunt answered. Predictably, Vi grinned at that. Ever since Kate had come into Castle’s life, Vi had started to embrace her younger age. Slayers!

He glanced at the clock again. Still a good hour left. Not counting traffic. More than enough time for the classic version. He took a deep breath and began.

“The world is older than you know…”

*****

**New York, December 2009**

“... and after Sunnydale, we’ve rebuilt, spread out and increased our efforts against the demons on all fronts. We have the active Hellmouth in Cleveland locked down and the rest of the Hellmouths are under close surveillance. Vi is the resident Slayer in New York, and I’m her Watcher. We’ve kept the population of hostile demons quite low.” Richard Castle finished his story with a smile and a well-deserved bow to his Slayer.

“I did all of that - while at the same time keeping you out of trouble!” Vi interjected.

Maybe not so well-deserved, Rick thought while he frowned at the redhead. Then he turned to his father. “So, now you know what ‘London’ stands for.”

Hunt looked sceptical. Or to be more precise, he looked as if Castle was a lunatic in dire need of institutionalisation. Rick was more familiar with that look than he liked - why didn’t anyone ever believe him when he told them the truth?

Fortunately, he had proof available. He sat down on his couch again. “Vi? I think my… father needs a demonstration.” He had to get used to that word.

Vi rolled her eyes, but she bent down, grabbed the couch on which Castle and his mother were sitting, and lifted it up. Rick waited half a minute, then gestured at the couch. “Feel free to check for wires, magnets, anything you can think of.”

Hunt actually did, running his hand below the couch, then glancing up. Castle nodded to Vi, and she slowly lowered the couch and Castle’s father actually checked for wires. Kate hadn’t done that, he remembered. She had trusted him that far at least.

“Are you now convinced that I told you the truth?” Castle asked with a wide grin. This never failed.

“No.” Hunt responded in a flat voice.

What? Rick stared at his father. “And how do you explain this feat of strength without magic?”

“Bionic augmentation. Drugs. Genetic engineering.” Hunt bared his teeth. “I’ve been hearing rumors about black projects. Cyborgs able to carry weapons meant for vehicles. Special drugs to enhance soldiers.” He nodded at Vi. “She would fit either project. Or some gene splicing - if the civilians are starting to clone people, the government could be far further down that road.”

Castle exchanged a glance with Vi, who seemed torn between amusement and outrage, then shook his head at his far too cynical father - what kind of man would so stubbornly deny that magic existed when it was demonstrated in front of him? An accountant, maybe? “Those experiments you heard about happened in Sunnydale, and they used magic for them.” Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped the mess with ADAM when he told his story.

Hunt looked at him with an almost pitying expression.

Rick set his jaw. “It’s the truth. We know people who were there. Hell, we know people who took part in those experiments. And who had to clean up the mess when it went out of control.”

“An entire army base, wiped out by monsters - including a cyborg-human-demon-hybrid,” Vi added, nodding as if she had been there.

“I’ve heard better cover stories,” Hunt said. “The British have a reputation for a reason. Especially if they were active on our soil for so long.”

“The treaties with the Council actually go back to a time before the American Revolution,” Castle pointed out. “The first records of the Council date back to the time writing was invented.”

“Richard. When someone doesn’t believe your story, doubling down on your claims won’t make it more believable.” Mother shook her head. “I was sceptical myself, but seeing a vampire rise from the dead quite convinced me.”

“We don’t have the time to organise that,” Rick pointed out - was he the only one remembering that Alexis had been kidnapped? - “but fortunately, we’ll soon be visited by someone who can demonstrate the existence of magic.” He blinked and held up a hand before his father could say anything. “Don’t tell me - you would consider that psionics.”

“There have been rumours of agents with special talents…” Hunt started.

Castle cut him off with a gesture and crossed his arms. He wasn’t pouting, though. Not really. “Foiled by an overly strong faith in government conspiracies… who would have thought that would ever happen to me?” He ignored Vi’s raised hand. And that of his mother. Then he frowned. What if Hunt was correct, and the US government had such programs? He would have to remember to ask Willow to check the government systems for that, before they had to deal with another ADAM mess.

“I could hit Clark’s and fetch a demon,” Vi offered. “Someone he can’t explain away as genetic engineering.”

Rick checked the time, then shook his head. “No, we can’t afford that.” And he preferred to keep Vi with him - in case Hunt decided that Castle had to be institutionalised for his own good. “We’ll just have to hope that the Scoobies brought Spike with them.”

And if anyone had told him that he’d ever utter those words, he would have called them crazy.

*****

“Scoobies in da house!” Xander entered with a wide smile.

“Xander! Show some respect!” Willow.

“I just wanted to raise morale.” Xander again.

“Well, you failed miserably.” Spike. His usual self.

“At least he tried.” Dawn. Not helping.

“He’d need to dress more sexily to raise my morale.” Faith. Who else?

“Hello, Richard.” Mary. Of course she would come as well.

“Hi everyone!” Buffy, being professional. “Kate’s off to the precinct, to get the latest information. Oh, who’s the old guy?” Or not.

Glancing at his father’s expression, Rick felt like rubbing the bridge of his nose, if that wouldn’t make him look far too much like Rupert. Hunt’s first impression of the Scoobies was, predictably, not the best.

“Rick, we came as quick as we could. Well, as quick as we could while still being able to track Alexis - we could have come more quickly, but then I would have been too exhausted to do anything for a longer timespan than it took us to fly in,” Willow said. Her lack of breath told Castle just how agitated the witch was. Then she noticed Hunt. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t notice you, I’m sorry. Hello!”

Castle decided to cut in before Willow did breathe. “Hello everyone. This is Jackson Hunt, my long-lost secret agent father. Who has decided that his granddaughter getting kidnapped is sufficient grounds to enter our lives. Dad,” he said in as sweet a voice as he managed, “these people are the Scoobies. Also known as ‘London’, ‘the Council’, and a demon’s worst nightmare.”

“A secret agent?” “Your father?” “Where was he for the last forty years?” “Now we know where Castle gets it from.” “Hello, Mr. Robinson!” “‘Lo.” “Your father is alive?”

Long experience allowed Castle to understand what the Scoobies - and Mary - were saying, despite everyone talking at the same time. He cleared his throat before Hunt caught on. “Also, I’ve given him the speech,” - he ignored Xander’s ‘the talk’ comment - “but he remains somewhat sceptical of the existence of the paranormal. Even after a demonstration of Vi’s supernatural strength. His scepticism is based on rumours of cybernetic experiments and enhanced combat drugs.”

Willow got it first. “ADAM!” Then she gasped. “Does that mean there actually are such experiments going on? But how could they manage that outside the area of effect of an active Hellmouth? The magic required to compensate for the rejection and physics couldn’t be provided in any other location apart from sacred groves and similar hallowed ground, and the very presence of what such experiments would need would defile them…”

“Breathe, Willow!” Buffy cut in, smiling at the witch, then narrowed her eyes and walked towards Hunt until she was looking down at him from her not so impressive height of five foot nothing. “So, you’re Mister Agent Sceptico.”

“He’s not a cat,” Castle heard Dawn mutter.

Hunt met her gaze without flinching. Castle’s father had nerves of steel. Or he didn’t know the Slayer. On the other hand, he thought that she was a combat cyborg able to rip him in half. A secret combat cyborg. Castle’s father did have nerves of steel.

“Yes.” And a very expressive voice, Rick added. Which, unfortunately, was currently expressing Hunt’s profound scepticism and lack of respect, unless Castle was mistaken.

“I guess me mangling one of your guns, or maybe you, wouldn’t convince you that magic is real?”

Hunt shook his head.

“And Willow dismantling a gun with her magic?”

“He’ll think it was psionics,” Vi said.

“But psionics is just another term for magic, since both cannot be produced by conventional physics or technology,” Willow said. “And while Magic is often deemed more fantastical, ultimately both are terms for the same - a paranormal power most humans lack.”

“I think the problem is that as long as he thinks it’s just a special power, he will not accept that there are demons, hell, and all the rest,” Dawn cut in.

“Ah!” Willow nodded. “I see the problem. So…”

“And I have the solution,” Buffy declared. The Slayer sounded as impatient to Castle as Rick himself felt. “Spike!”

“Oy! Forget it!” the vampire exclaimed. “He’ll claim I’m some freak.”

“You are a freak,” Xander said.

“Not that kind of freak. The wrong kind,” Spike clarified. “Besides, you heard the man. Or the author, in this case - his daddy will think I’m a pisonic. Or a mutant. Or some escaped experiment.”

“Technically, you are an escaped experiment,” Xander said, smirking. “Did they ever stop searching for ‘Hostile 17’?”

“Xander!” Willow scolded him while Spike snarled - and vamped out.

Rick saw his father react to that, before regaining his composure. Progress, maybe.

“See, Mister Hunt - by the way, are you related to Ethan Hunt from the movies?” Buffy smiled at Rick’s father in that vapid way of hers that made people underestimate her all the time.

“No.” Hunt said, in the same tone you usually talked to children. Of course he could be faking it, and make her think that he was underestimating her.

“Ah… just a coincidence then. Where was I?” Buffy blinked.

“You wanted to abuse Spike to prove the existence of demons and magic,” Xander helpfully pointed out.

“Oy!”

“Thank you,” Buffy said, smiling widely. “We will now thoroughly demonstrate that Spike is a real vampire, cursed, walking corpse and all that, and not some weird experiment.”

“I never agreed to that!” said vampire protested.

“If he’s connected to Alexis’s kidnapping, then we need his help,” Buffy pointed out. “And he’ll not help us if he thinks we’re a bunch of loons.”

“We aren’t?” Xander asked, acting surprised.

“Xander, not the time!” Dawn glared at him.

Spike sighed. “Alright. Let’s get this over with. But just because it’s for Alexis.”

While the vampire was soon undergoing all kinds of painful demonstrations of his magical nature - the various crosses he was touched with, to show it was a metaphysical and not an allergic reaction, were an especially thoughtful touch, Castle felt, but his lack of a reflection had a bigger impact - Rick wondered just how close Alexis was to the vampire. And if he should be concerned. Spike had taught her how to pick locks, after all, and the vampire had the morals of… Castle couldn’t actually think of a suitable comparison until Hunt, after Willow had briefly transformed Spike into a rat, finally was convinced that yes, magic existed.

Which meant that they could get on with saving Alexis.

******

**New York, December 2009**

Kate Beckett knew Castle had done something to rile up the Feds when she entered the precinct and saw Will make a beeline towards her. Or, to be exact, she knew he had done something else to rile them up - he had been rude to them when they had first met, after all. Though she would have known that even if she hadn’t been present then - the dozen messages on her phone sent by Will would have told her so.

“Kate!” She saw that Will had trouble controlling his temper - he was opening and closing his left hand, one of his tells.

“Yes?” She tried to sound as calm and professional as she could. One of them had to.

“Where were you? You haven’t answered any of my messages!”

“I was driving.” She almost added ‘and messaging while driving is illegal’ - she blamed Castle’s influence. She certainly wasn’t being influenced by Vi, and Alexis wouldn’t use such an excuse.

Will took a deep breath and even closed his eyes for a moment. “Get your lover,” - he almost spat the word out - “under control. We cannot solve this case if he doesn’t cooperate!”

Kate narrowed her eyes. Castle could be aggravating, but Will hadn’t been as bad during his last visit. Something else was going on. “What happened? As far as I know, he has cooperated and set up a trace on his landline.”

“He has thrown out the agents sent to protect him.”

Kate felt like sighing herself - or laughing. She didn’t either and kept her cool. “He has a very capable bodyguard. He doesn’t need additional protection.” Not from the FBI, at least. Those agents would be more useful somewhere else.

“Why are you helping him?” Will stared at her. “Are you involved in his work?”

“What?” Did Will know about the demons, or did her ex still think Castle was working for the CIA? “He’s using me as a model for the character of his next book.” And she still hadn’t been able to read the first draft.

“Don’t play dumb. He’s CIA, and this kidnapping is connected to him. And you’re covering for him.”

Kate snorted this time. “He’s not working for the CIA.”

Will was clenching is teeth in frustration. “Who is he working for? We can’t afford any interference. The lives of two girls are at stake!”

And careers, the cynical part of Kate whispered inside her mind. Out loud she said “Castle will not hinder the investigation.” Quite the contrary - Willow would find them, Kate knew, and then they’d make the kidnappers wish they had never set foot in New York. “But you really don’t need to waste anyone on a protection detail for him. Vi is very good, and I’ll be with him as well.”

“Ah.” She knew that tone. Far too well.

Kate sighed. “Are you still not over the fact that I’m with him?”

Will pressed his lips together for a moment. “This is not about that.” Meaning, yes, it was.

She sighed. “Get over it.” Leaving him, she walked towards Ryan. “Anything new?”

He shrugged. “I’m just checking electronic trails on the Feds’ orders.”

Turning her head, she looked at Esposito, who was standing behind his partner with a cup of what passed for coffee here in his hand.

“I’m helping him,” he answered her unspoken question.

She caught Will talking to Walker, his superior, and frowned.

“Trouble with the Fed Ex?” Esposito asked, his grinning mouth half-hidden behind his mug.

When had Castle’s bon mot become popular? Kate thought, then shook her head. “Maybe.” When she saw Walker coming towards her, she added: “Yes.”

“Detective Beckett.”

“Yes, Agent Walker?” Castle would have made a ‘Texas Ranger”’ remark, she thought.

“Are you related to one of the victims?”

“No. But I am in a relationship with the father of Alexis Castle.” She hadn’t anything to hide.

“And you didn’t think to mention that before?”

“I assumed that Agent Sorenson had informed you.” Kate tried to sound as bland as possible. “He was well aware of that fact.”

“He has… just now.” Walker glanced at Will, who pressed his lips together. Kate waited. She knew what was coming. Walker went on: “You are too close to this case, Detective. And you should have known that.”

She had expected that, and prepared for it. “I wasn’t aware that I was still on the case,” Kate said. “I haven’t worked on it since you arrived, and I even signed out for today two hours ago. Private errand.” She shrugged. “I did check in to see if there were any news, before returning to Castle’s apartment.” But that was nothing they could hold against her.

Will opened his mouth, then closed and glared at her. Walker snorted. “I see. You wouldn’t have been doing some private investigation?”

Kate gave her same look she had perfected on Esposito when he had been speculating about her love life. “No, Agent. I was actually picking up friends at the airport.”

“Your friends or Castle’s ‘friends’?” Will interjected, causing Walker to frown.

“Shared friends.” She turned back to Walker. “If there is nothing else and no new information for us, then I’ll head back home.”

Before Walker could answer, another agent yelled from the section of the precinct the FBI had taken over. “Someone’s calling the El-Haddads!”

A few seconds later, everyone was gathered around the speakers relaying the conversation - if you could call a curt ransom demand that.

“Where is it from?” Walker asked the FBI technician.

“We’re still tracking it, ma’am.” He didn’t sound very optimistic, though.

“Nothing on Castle’s line?” Walker asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Kate wasn’t surprised. Concerned, but not surprised.

*****

She was surprised when she reached Castle’s flat - had she really called it home in the precinct? And found an older man sitting on the couch she certainly hadn’t picked up at the airport. And he was talking with Martha.

“Kate!” Rick hugged her. “Right on time - Willow’s about to cast the spell. Did you find out anything else at the precinct?”

“There was a ransom demand sent to the El-Haddads.” She nodded at the couch. “Who is your visitor?” She had almost said ‘our visitor’.

“Ah… that’s my father. He works as a secret agent with a license to kill.”

“What?” She stared at him with her mouth open. If that was his idea of a joke, she would kill him. And if wasn’t a joke…

Her face must have betrayed her thoughts since Rick quickly lost that infuriating grin of his and started to explain.

*****

“Hello, Mr Hunt.”

“Hello, Miss Beckett.”

His handshake was firm, she noted, and his smile told her where Castle’s had come from. Definitely Rick’s father. She nodded towards the room where Willow was working her magic. “You’ve been told about magic.”

“And you’ve been informed - like everyone else here - about my background.”

Ah, that smile could slip. Rick’s father wasn’t as happy as he tried to appear.

“Most of my friends don’t take well to secrets. Some even have an almost pathological need to ferret them out,” Castle interjected. “Present company excluded, of course,” he added quickly with a forced smile.

“Why? I’m not about to deny that I’ve got a healthy curiosity,” Dawn said while she grabbed some of the peanuts that had managed to survive three Slayers.

“She means that she’s an incorrigible snoop,” Buffy said, reaching out for the snacks herself.

Dawn smacked her sister’s hand, but that didn’t deter the blonde and she left the bowl almost empty.

“And she’s an incorrigible glutton,” Dawn said, scowling.

Buffy’s retort was hampered by her mouth being full of pilfered peanuts.

Kate tried to ignore the antics of their guests. “So… you think this kidnapping is related to you and your work.” Which, she suspected, were one and the same for the man - otherwise, he wouldn’t have stayed away from his son for so long.

“Yes. All circumstances point at that conclusion.”

“Will your employers involve themselves in the investigation?”

“No. I was actually warned several times in the past not to contact my son. I now realise why exactly my employers were so keen on keeping me away.” Hunt smiled wryly.

“You make it sound as if we’re bad,” Buffy said, in her ‘blonde airhead’ voice, with a pout that would have made Brigitte Bardot jealous.

“Did you threaten to tear out his rib cage and wear it as a hat, Buffy?” Dawn asked.

“No… but I think I should.” Buffy nodded slowly. “In case he wants to go to Spain after this.”

Hunt looked as lost as Kate felt. Mary, who hadn’t said anything so far, sighed, and leaned forward. “She means that she wouldn’t like it if Rick’s father disappeared from his life after this.”

Buffy nodded emphatically. “Yes. I really don’t like runaway Dads. Children need their parents - just look at how Dawn turned out.”

“Hey!”

“I’m not a child anymore,” Castle said. “Kate, back me up!” he added after a few seconds full of throats being cleared and eyes being rolled.

Fortunately, Xander’s loud “Willow’s found her!” saved Kate from having to answer that.

*****

 


	23. The Kidnapping Part 2

**New York, December 2009**

“She’s in France? As in France, Europe?” Richard Castle asked again. “How is that possible?”

“Well… if we can fly from London to New York, anyone else can fly from New York to Paris in about the same time,” Buffy said.

“The distance is longer, though,” Willow pointed out. The witch looked rather tired, but Castle had her seen fight in even worse condition - not that it mattered now, since she would have a transatlantic flight’s worth of rest soon.

“But de Gaulle is not as complicated to get through as Heathrow.” Buffy dug her heels in. “That saves time.”

“That’s French propaganda,” Xander cut in.

“That’s my experience.” Buffy crossed her arms and pouted. “I’ve been in Paris often enough - actually, no, I haven’t been in Paris often enough, not by far, and you can tell Giles and Anya that at the next budget meeting! - to know that.”

“Anecdotal evidence is no evidence.” Dawn entered the living room, carrying a bag with the supplies Willow had used for her spell.

“It so is! For me!” Buffy huffed.

“Fortunately, you’re not an authority on such things.” Dawn stuck her tongue out and handed the bag to Xander.

“She’s only an authority on shoes and bad boyfriends,” Faith said from where she was lounging on the couch in a seemingly relaxed manner - if not for her left foot, which was tapping the floor.

“Oy!” Apparently, Spike had decided to stop sulking in Castle’s office after his role as a demonstration of magic to Rick’s father. He hoped that his guest hadn’t made a mess.

“Are you saying that you’re not a bad boy?” Dawn raised her eyebrow at the vampire.

“Of course I am! But she makes that sound bad.”

“Mhh.” Faith smirked, and grabbed another handful of crackers from the bowl on the table. If they were eating that brand, then the Scoobies had probably emptied his fridge and pantry already, Castle thought.

“Can we stop talking about the history of my love life and focus on more important matters?” Buffy asked, with a rather theatrical eyeroll. Castle agreed with the sentiment, though.

“Your shoes?” Dawn apparently did not.

“Am I the only one who cares about my kidnapped granddaughter?” Hunt suddenly asked through clenched teeth. Castle could see the CIA killer coming to the fore behind the man’s until now polite facade.

“The answer to that question is always ‘no’.” Dawn smirked. She obviously wasn’t paying attention. Or her sense of self-preservation had been killed by her strange diet, as Buffy claimed. “But to answer more seriously: We all care about her. But staying all Batman-like won’t help her, and will just make us tense and worry and all.”

“Yeah. Dawn would know, She’s been kidnapped… how many times now? Did she make the dozen yet?” Buffy said.

“Do we count the time she was mistakenly kidnapped?” Xander asked. “And was returned without anyone noticing, because they couldn’t stand her any second longer?”

“Hey!” Dawn pouted at him. “I was freed when they realised that I’m the sister of the most scary Slayer in existence.”

“A likely story.” Xander shook his head in apparent disbelief.

“Not a likely story!” Faith cut in. “Buffy’s not half as scary as I am.”

“I am too so scary!” Buffy said, looking for all the world like a teenager making a scene when she was told about her curfew.

“Yes, you are.” Dawn’s smile and tone said the opposite. “Totally scary!”

Kate cleared her throat. “Tension-relieving banter aside, what do we do now?”

“We’ll fly directly to Paris using the Council’s private jet,” Buffy answered, in a calm and professional manner completely at odds with her earlier attitude. Castle marveled how quickly the Slayer managed to grow serious. “We’ll prepare for a strike on wherever Alexis is being held while in transit, and will arrange for support from the local Slayer and her Watcher. After another spell to check that Alexis wasn’t moved, we’ll strike, rescue her, and ensure no one will ever do that again. And then Rick will take us all shopping in Paris!” she added with a bright smile.

“I’m in!” Dawn stated, raising her hand.

“Good plan,” Faith agreed.

Willow nodded, her nose buried in a notebook, where - so Castle hoped - she was pinpointing the location she had found on a map.

“Ah… Paris! So many memories!” Spike smiled and seemed to sigh - with him not needing to breath, it was hard to tell. “I mean... so many horrible memories of my time before I won my soul. Really depressing!”

“Yeah, sure.” Xander glared at him.

“Who is the resident Slayer in Paris?” Vi asked.

“Rona.”

“Rona?” Vi gasped. “Wasn’t she in Mexico City? Why does she get Paris? The only French she knows is French kissing!”

“She was replaced by Valeria, a new Slayer from Mexico, and since Paris was free, she volunteered,” Dawn explained, and hastily added: “It was Giles’ decision! Complain to him!”

“I will!” Vi huffed.

“Do you really want to leave New York?” Kate asked.

“Of course not! Rick needs me here!” Vi scoffed. “But it’s the principle of the thing!”

“She means she’s jealous,” Xander butted in. “Even though Parisian fashion is way overhyped.”

“Coming a guy who thinks Hawaii-shirts are fashionable, that’s a recommendation,” Buffy retorted. “Vampires have a better fashion sense.”

“What? The French comics are also not as good as the American ones,” Xander shot back.

“You heathen!” Dawn scoffed. “And it’s Franco-Belgian, I’ll have you know.”

“Everyone! I’ve rerouted Castle’s phones so we can be reached in the air and in France. We can go,” Willow announced.

“Alright.” Buffy turned serious again. “New Yorkers and newly-discovered Dad - Beckett’s car. Me, Dawn, Mary and Spike take Castle’s car. Faith, Willow and Xander take the rental. Slayers drive or we take too long. Move it!”

Rick moved to hug his mother. “I’ll bring her back, safe and sound,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she managed to say, before wiped her eyes.

“I’ll bring him back in one piece as well,” Vi said, hefting his and her bugout-bags. Or mission bags.

“I know you will,” Mother said.

“And the dad too - if he wants to or not,” Vi added with a grin that only grew wider at the glance Hunt shot her.

*****

Castle’s father grabbed a bag of his own out of his car - a nondescript rental, Castle thought, so boring even he had almost missed it in the guest parking area. “Cut-down or bullpup?” Castle asked.

Hunt looked at him, then answered: “M4.”

“Good choice!” Vi said as she slid the bags into the trunk of Beckett’s car. “If you can’t carry a real gun.” Castle rolled his eyes - Slayers and their need to be the toughest in the room!

“And what is a real gun?” Hunt asked. He didn’t blink at the Ack Pack Vi had carried as well, Castle noticed.

“Buffy likes her pig, but I prefer the MG-3. Or a minigun, if Rick would stop being so stingy,” Vi said as she slid behind the wheel.

“I just bought you another sword!” Castle defended himself. Beckett took shotgun - it was only fair, since it was her car, after all. “Ever been driven by a Slayer?” he asked as his father sat down next to him.

“No.”

Castle grinned. Buffy might wreck his beloved Shelby, but at least he’d get to watch his father scream.

*****

Hunt hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t even shown much of a reaction. Rick still felt cheated when he took his seat in the Council’s private jet. At least his Shelby had lived to be driven another time.

“Son, I’ve been flown around by pilots high on all the drugs on sale in the Golden Triangle. A little race car driving doesn’t faze me.” Hunt had a far too familiar smile on his face, Castle thought.

“Well, you should have been a bit worried,” Vi cut in, sitting down across Hunt, “I’m usually driving sports cars, not cop clunkers.”

Beckett, taking her seat across Castle’s, fortunately didn’t take the bait. “I forgot to ask: Does the immunity of the Council extend to me and to your father as well?” she asked instead of sniping at the Slayer.

“You’ve been listed as a Council member since some time,” Castle told her.

“What?” She seemed to be annoyed instead of happy, he noticed. “Without asking me?”

Ah. “It’s just to protect you in case something goes south.” She didn’t seem to like that explanation either. He should have asked her, but it seemed so logical and trivial. Then again, nonchalantly telling her that he had cleared half of his armoire hadn’t led to her moving into his flat for good either.

He really had to work on his timing. After this.

He leaned to the side. “Willow! Can you add my father to our roster?”

“Sure!” came her cheerful answer. “What name do you want to use, Mister Hunt?”

“What exactly will that gain me?” Rick’s father asked.

“Basically, diplomatic immunity. Highest level - though the Council gets really annoyed if you actually use it,” Castle said. “Even if it wasn’t your fault.” Which it hadn’t been. Rupert simply wouldn’t admit it.

“The highest level?” Hunt seemed to be doubting him.

“The Council’s older than any current country.” Castle shrugged.

“I see.” He turned his head to talk to Willow. “Mark my name down as Jackson Hunt, please.”

“Even the governments don’t bother you when you’re cleaning up their demon problems,” Vi added.

“The smart, sane ones, at least.” Buffy stood next to Vi. “The not so sane and not so smart ones get cleaned up. Usually after a lot of people died. Also - if you abuse this for any government work, we’ll have words. Pointy words.” She bared her teeth at Rick’s father, and this time, the man’s facade seemed to crack a bit - he flinched. “I hope we understand each other.”

“Yes.” And the mask was back in place.

“Everyone, fasten your seat belts. We’re about to take off!” Xander announced. “Always wanted to say that!”

A few minutes later they were on their way to France. To Alexis.

*****

**Over the Atlantic Ocean, December 2009**

“I’ve found the identity of the owner of the house Alexis is being held in!” Willow announced an hour into their flight.

“Willow! You should be resting!”

“I’ve got enough time left to sleep; this is important information,” Willow retorted, waving Buffy’s concern away. She pointed at her laptop’s screen, where the picture of an older man was visible. “The manor belongs to…”

“Gregory Volkov,” Hunt interrupted her, glaring at the screen.

“Ah… you know him.” Willow pouted slightly.

“Yes. He’s a former KGB operative and current vory v zakone.”

“Gesundheit!” Buffy cut in.

“That means he’s a leader in the Bratva, also called the Russian Mafia, though that is not entirely correct given their very different origins and structures,” Willow explained. “They originated in the gulags of the soviet era, and…”

“I don’t think we need the history lesson, Will,” Xander said. “We just need to know that they are bad guys we can deal with without moral qualms.”

As everyone but Willow nodded at that - the witch was pouting, probably at having her revelation spoiled twice in a row - Castle turned to his father. “So… your suspicion was correct.”

“Yes.”

“That was a prompt to tell us why he hates you so much that he’d kidnap Alexis,” Castle continued.

Hunt hesitated, but faced with everyone staring at him expectantly - Dawn putting her hand to her ear to hear him better was a bit over the top, Rick thought - he sighed and started to explain: “I killed his wife on a mission ten years ago.” After several seconds of further staring, he grit his teeth. “It’s classified. Top secret. Suffice to say that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and took a bullet meant for Volkov.”

“Our government at work,” Dawn said, sighing theatrically, “making a mess for future generations, as usual. At least this time, it’s not a killer cyborg with a nuclear reactor powering him, and an army of demons in an army base. That’s top secret too,” she added with a wide smile aimed at Hunt.

“Yeah. At least those guys will not shrug off my baby’s best bullets!” Buffy exclaimed, patting her M60. “It’s so annoying when they don’t go down after you hit them.”

“If they are wearing bulletproof vests, they might still not go down,” Xander said.

“I’m not using wimpy 5.56 ammo!” Buffy retorted. “And if they’re wearing those really bulky vests, I’ll aim high - or low.”

Usually, Castle would wince at the last part, as every man would. But since they were talking about the men holding his daughter prisoner, he simply nodded with a grim smile.

*****

**Paris, December 2009**

“Rick!”

Richard Castle had about half a second of forewarning before a Slayer-shaped limpet attached herself to him when he left the airplane. Just enough to brace for impact.

“I’m so sorry to hear about Alexis - but not as sorry as the creeps are gonna be!” she declared, holding on. “Me and Theo got the place scouted out - as soon as night falls, we can move.”

‘Theo’ would be Theodore Sanders, a middle-aged man whom Richard Castle hadn’t met before. But he would have recognised a fellow watcher just from the long-suffering look the man wore.

“You can release him now, Rona,” Vi hissed behind him.

“Hm? Ah! Hi, Vi. I didn’t see you.” The Slayer of Paris - that sounded wrong, somehow - made no move to release Castle, and Rick cleared his throat.

“He’s taken, Rona.” Vi was grinding her teeth now. And baring them, Rick just knew.

“What? Not by you. You had your chance! Now it’s my turn.”

Sometimes - often - Rick really hated the competitions into which Slayers seemed to turn everything. He had no doubt that Rona wasn’t interested in him, other than to rile up Vi and prove herself better than her fellow Slayer.

“No, by me.” Beckett’s voice was colder than the November air outside. Much colder.

“Huh? Who’re you?” Rona released Rick and faced the detective. Castle refrained from rubbing circulation back into his arms. Showing any weakness now would be bad.

Before Kate could answer, Vi scoffed. “She’s Detective Beckett, you dolt. Didn’t you read my mails about her?”

“What mails?” Rick and Kate asked in unison.

Both Slayers ignored the question. “I thought she would be taller. And uglier,” Rona said.

“What?” Kate was now glaring at both of them.

“Why would Rick fall for an ugly woman?” Vi asked, hands on her hips.

“Well, he has kept you as his Slayer?” Rona asked with fake innocence.

“Verona!” Theo spoke up for the first time.

“Vi!” Castle yelled.

“Cut it out you two!” Buffy snapped at them, and the two froze. “We’re not here to see who’s the bigger Slayer - we’re here to rescue Alexis, stomp some bads, and then go shopping!”

Their priorities thus reaffirmed, the group proceeded towards the three SUVs Theo and Rona had had brought up. Castle would have scolded Vi, but Kate had grabbed his arm, and didn’t seem to be willing to release him any time soon. Slayers always brought out the worst - or best - in his girlfriend. Not that he would mention that to her, of course.

*****

**Île-de-France, December 2009**

“I don’t see any other guards,” Richard Castle whispered as he stared through the lens of his night vision gear at the old-looking chateau a few hundred metres in front of him. “Just the two on patrol in the golf cart on this side.” Golf Carts! Wasn’t that just asking for a visit by the Secret Service?

“It’s not a golf cart. It’s an ATV,” Rona, up in the branches of the tree next to him, disagreed with him. “And they have two of them out.”

“Mounting bigger tires doesn’t turn a golf cart into an ATV,” Vi mumbled from his left. “And you don’t have to whisper, no one is in range to overhear us.”

“There’s bound to be a shift in the gate house,” Kate said on his other side. “One or two guards.”

“And the four on the terraces, with night vision gear,” Vi added. “Looks like Rona didn’t miscount.”

“Hey!”

“So… we proceed as planned,” Buffy said once they rejoined the rest of the group in their impromptu base inside an old cottage. “The Infiltration Team - me, Faith, Vi, Spike, Castle, Hunt, Willow, Xander and Kate - go over the wall and sneak through the trees and bushes. The distraction drives up to the gate, with full fog lights on - London level. That will render their night vision gear useless and blind them. We Slayers use the opportunity to sprint over the lawn and take out the guards on the terrace. While we break into the house, the rest joins us and the distraction takes out the gatekeepers and then brings the rest of the cars up so we can leave quickly once we’re done.” A typical Xander plan, as the Scoobies called it, if a bit on the Buffy side, Castle thought. But it would do - Hunt hadn’t objected to it either.

“I got it the first time,” Rona said. “And I still say I shouldn’t be the distraction.”

“You’re the local, you speak the language.” Buffy’s tone broke no contradiction.

“She can speak French?” Vi had to add her two cents anyway, of course.

“Not perfectly or like a native, but that is essentially correct,” Theo said. Rona simply growled.

“Everyone will think she’s a tourist who got lost.” Rick could hear Vi smirking.

“Be glad you’re at least the distraction,” Dawn cut in. “I’m the expert on kidnapping, and I only get to be the driver.”

“That’s ‘expert on getting kidnapped’, and ‘getaway driver’,” Xander corrected her.

Dawn huffed but didn’t say anything else.

“Alright. Since Kate has found out from her friends that the other girl, Elsa Dada,” Buffy ignored Dawn’s ‘El-Haddad’, “has been released after her parents paid the ransom, we’ve got only Alexis to rescue. Any questions?” Buffy stood up from where she had been crouching at the map on the ground.

“Something’s happening!” Spike suddenly said over the radio. “I can see the guards moving - and the lights inside the mansion are all burning now! Looks like someone stepped on an anthill.” What? Castle whipped around. “I bet the little chit is making a break for it. She learned how to pick a lock from me, after all!” Spike added in a far too proud voice.

Various curses filled the room and radio channel. Then Buffy spoke up. “Change of plan. All but the drivers rush the mansion, and take out anyone who gets in our way! Willow, cover us! Move!”

Castle, his assault rifle in hand, was barely out of the door of the cottage by the time the Slayers reached the wall surrounding the manor’s grounds. They didn’t bother with climbing and simply jumped over it with all their gear.

“Damn!” he heard his father curse next to him, and he remembered that this was the first time Hunt truly saw Slayers in action, and the best of them at that. He would have made a smart remark, but he needed his breath for running. Alexis needed his help!

They were close to the wall when lightning seemed to strike it from behind them. “I’ve disabled the sensors on the wall. You can safely climb it now,” Willow announced.

Another curse from his dad made Rick look over his shoulder as he got the grappling hook out, and he saw that the witch was floating, lightning crackling around her hands. “Focus on the mission,” he whispered while throwing his hook.

His dad did - and beat him over the wall. Castle grit his teeth and forced himself to run faster through the woods surrounding the manor. It was one thing to be shown up by a superpowered Slayer, another by his own, aging father! At least Beckett wasn’t faster than he was - but she kept pace with him, even in her heeled boots! He wasn’t getting too old for this, he told himself.

A flash followed by a blast cut through the night, followed by Willow’s voice on the radio: “I’ve taken out the gate and the guards there.”

Gunfire followed from ahead of them. Short bursts. Buffy’s M60 - he recognised the noise easily. “Guards on the terrace are down,” he heard her.

He reached the edge of the forest and saw one of the golf carts turn the corner - the guards on the back of the building must be moving to reinforce this side. He raised his rifle and fired a three-round burst at it, together with his father and Beckett. After a few bursts, the cart took a sudden turn to the left and toppled over, spilling three guards on the lawn. Two of them were still moving. Three bursts later, none were.

“Hit it, Willow!”

Castle had barely time to cover his night vision gear before the entire manor was covered by lightning, turning night to day for a moment. When he looked up again, the entire building had been plunged into darkness - Willow’s spell had taken out the manor’s power.

“Breaching charges set!” Buffy announced. A second later, parts of the walls blew in, leaving large holes.

“We’re going in!”

*****

**Île-de-France, December 2009**

Richard Castle sprinted up the wide stairs leading to the terrace, rifle at the ready. He trusted Beckett and his father to cover their flanks. Up ahead, the dust clouds from the charges  - quite bright in the low light - were just settling, but the Slayers and Spike were already inside the manor.

“Slayers taking ground floor and basement!” Buffy ordered over the radio. “Everyone else, take the second floor. Or first, if you’re English!” Castle could hear gunfire both over her radio as well as from the manor.

He didn’t like the orders - prisoners were always in the dungeons, after all - but they made sense. “Someone’s moving upstairs,” Hunt announced. “Tactical lights.”

Castle glanced up and could see the cones of flashlights flickering behind the windows. “Guess they don’t have night vision gear inside.” Or not on them.

“We’re coming through!” Dawn announced over the radio. A moment later, Castle could see the first car crash through the remains of the gate. “Guess the SUV was a good choice,” he muttered when he saw the car climb over a mound of debris.

Gunfire to his left drew his attention - someone was firing on the cars from the other side of the building! He heard Dawn yelp in surprise, and the leading car started to swerve. A moment later, a machine gun started to fire at the guards from the remains of the gate - Xander, providing covering fire.

“I’ll take them out!” Hunt yelled, and Castle saw that he had drawn a grenade.

“No! We’re going in!” he retorted. “They can handle the ones outside.”

“What?” Hunt stared at him. A second later, lightning struck the other corner of the building.

“Willow’s really into the storm goddess theme,” Castle quipped, “we should buy her an X-Men costume for Christmas.” Or Hanukkah - he wasn’t certain what celebration the wiccan preferred these days.

He entered the manor through the closest breach in the walls, leading with his rifle. Two corpses lay in the dust-covered hallway inside, riddled with bullets. “Buffy’s baby,” he whispered, then took a left, towards the entrance hall with the stairs leading to the second floor.

Hunt and Beckett followed him. There was another dead guard in the entrance hall. This one was covered with the shattered remains of the stairs’ railing and had his head smashed in. The Slayers weren’t bothering with taking anyone alive. Castle wasn’t planning to either.

He slowed down when he reached the foot of the stairs and kept his rifle aimed at the floor ahead as he moved up. Light was flickering in the right hallway on the first floor - someone was moving there. He pointed at it, then gripped his rifle again and proceeded in a crouch, clenching his teeth. They were facing well-armed and presumably decently trained enemies, and nobody in his group had a supernatural advantage. He much preferred hunting demons - they were often bulletproof, and stronger and tougher than humans, but they rarely used guns.

If the guards were smart they wouldn’t move forward with their flashlights on. But if they expected enemies with night vision gear, they would do so to blind them. After a moment’s hesitation, he flipped his goggles up, then moved to the top of the stairs, taking cover behind a pillar there.

He peered around the pillar to the right hallway while Hunt covered the left. Something moved there, something flew towards him… “Grenade!” he yelled, dropping to the floor.

A second later the grenade exploded and he felt as if a mule had kicked him in the back, smashing his chest into the floor and robbing him of his breath. And he couldn’t see clearly. Flashbang, he realised. The guards would be charging at them now - but Castle had kept his rifle pointed at the hallway. He switched it to full auto and emptied the entire clip into the hallway’s direction.

As soon as the rifle stopped firing, he rolled behind the pillar - he could see well enough again - and reloaded. There was a body on the ground, right at the corner. Beckett was on the stairs, looking dazed but otherwise unhurt. And Hunt was already at the other side of the hall, covering the left hallway. Did his father have something to prove, or did he just like to show up Castle? People his age had no right to be so fit!

“Kate!”

“I’m fine!” she responded, scrambling to her feet. She almost toppled over, but managed to join him behind the pillar. “How many are left?”

“I don’t know. I got the one there, but I doubt he was alone.” Castle briefly looked her over. She was blinking often, but recovering quickly. “Let’s go right!”

“Alright.” Hunt placed something at the ground. “Left is mined.”

Castle hit the button of his radio. “We’ve mined the eastern hallway upstairs.” Then he moved to the right hallway, pressed his back against the wall at the corner and slid down to the ground. “I go low, you go high,” he told Hunt. “Kate covers the rear.” She would need a little more time to recover fully. “Remember: Alexis may be loose in here - don’t shoot unless you are certain it’s a guard.” He took a deep breath. “On three. One. Two. Three!”

He slid around the corner and went prone, rifle at the ready. The hallway was empty. He rolled to the side and got up, keeping his gun trained down the hallway. At the other end, he saw another flashlight flicker.

“We’ve found a cage on the first floor. Empty,” Castle heard Buffy over the radio.

“That’s my girl,” Spike added. “Picked the lock like a pro!”

So his little girl was somewhere in the manor… amidst gunfire and explosions. “Let’s go!” Castle said, and started to move down the hallway. He wasn’t quite running, but certainly not taking it slow. Alexis needed him!

“We’re in the basement. There’s lots of wine bottles, and a few empty cells, but no one but dead guards!” Vi reported. Castle heard a shot in the background, followed by some scream. “No one but dead guards,” Vi repeated.

“Slayer two, we’re meeting heavy resistance in the southern part of the ground floor,” Buffy said. “Check for secret passages then join us upstairs.”

Alexis wasn’t in the dungeons either, Castle thought. She would have to know that they were here to rescue her, so why wasn’t she showing herself?

He reached the first door on his right. But there was still someone with a flashlight behind the corner ahead. Start clearing rooms, or take the guard out? How many guards did Volkov have left, anyway? There had to be two dozens of them down by now, and the gunfire hadn’t lessened.

The guard behind the corner made the decision for Rick and swung into sight, firing at them. Castle dropped to the ground and returned fire. So did Hunt and Beckett. The man dropped to the ground and stopped firing. Hunt shot him in the head anyway.

Castle was about to get up again when bullets ripped through the door on his side, one clipping his shoulder. He threw himself forward, screaming when he rolled over his hurt shoulder, but the rest of the bullets missed him.

“Castle!” Beckett yelled.

He wanted to yell back that he was OK, but the pain in his shoulder made him groan instead. While his father placed a breaching charge at the wall next to the door, Castle grabbed his shoulder. He didn’t find any blood, so the kevlar had deflected the bullet, but the pain didn’t lessen - something must have broken. Probably when he rolled over it.

Then Hunt blew the charge and Castle’s teeth rattled too much to care about a broken shoulder. A few bursts from his carbine later, his father announced that the room was clear.

“Castle!” Kate was at his side, probing his shoulder.

He winced and moaned. “Careful! That hurts. Broken, I think.” He knew how a shoulder wrenched out of its socket felt like, and this wasn’t it.

He was about to get up when he heard a loud, amplified voice with a russian accent:

“Hunt! I know it’s you! I have your granddaughter! Call your strike team back, or she dies!”

*****

“It’s my strike team,” Rick muttered, standing up with Kate’s help.

Volkov - it had to be Volkov - yelled again: “Say something, bitch!”

“Daddy? We’re in the big room opening to…”

Alexis! And she was cut off in mid sentence! Castle snarled and turned around. He’d kill that bastard personally!

“He’s on the ground floor, south side,” Buffy announced over the radio before Castle could ask. “And I can hear Alexis there.”

She was still alive!

“I’m not bluffing, Hunt! Stop your team!”

Castle really needed a loudspeaker as well.

“He’s moving to the room with the cage. We’re falling back. Converge on that position!” Buffy ordered.

Every step hurt, but Castle didn’t care. His daughter needed him!

*****

When he reached the room in question, he found Volkov holding a gun to Alexis’s head, with a dozen guards surrounding them, assault rifles - Russian ones, AK-47 or AK-74s - aimed at the Slayers and Vampire surrounding them. Well, only one was aiming at Spike, since the vampire wasn’t carrying a gun; most were covering the Slayers carrying machine guns.

“Dad!” Alexis yelled as soon as she saw him.

“Alexis!”

“You brought your son?” Volkov was staring at Rick’s father.

“No,” Castle said, pain and annoyance filling him. “I brought him. That’s _my_ strike team.”

“Well, technically, half of us outrank you,” Spike said.

“Since when do we care about rank?” Vi said loyally. Castle would have to buy her a new sword once they were back. Well, he’d do that anyway.

Buffy cleared her throat. “Last I checked I’m in charge.”

“Tactical command. Not overall command,” Rick said.

Volkov was still staring. Scoobie chatter had that effect on those not used to it. Castle was counting on it. But the Russian mobster recovered quickly. “I don’t care - I have a hostage. And I want Hunt!”

“And a chopper out of here?” Faith asked. “Just checking, so we don’t have to renegotiate because you forgot one of your demands.”

Castle was certain that the Russian expletive wasn’t meant as an answer. It didn’t matter, anyway, as a glance over his shoulder told him.

Willow entered the room, floating a yard above the ground and surrounded by lightning, her hair spread out in a halo around her head - very dark red, Rick noticed with a wince. Once inside the room, she rose further up in the air and stared down at the group of kidnappers. “Drop your weapons and surrender!” she ordered in an inhuman voice.

For a moment, everyone was staring at the witch - everyone among the Russians. The Slayers didn’t need more than a moment. A second later, a dozen bodies hit the ground, shot in the head, and Volkov was staring at the stump of his arm, taken off below the shoulder by a kukri Buffy had thrown with enough force to go through concrete.

And Alexis was running towards Castle.

“Dad!”

“Alexis!” He spread his arms, uncaring of the pain that caused, and embraced his little girl. His not so little girl, he found, when her tight hug sent a lance of pain through his shoulder. “Ugh.”

“Dad! You’re hurt!” She stared at him.

“It’s just a broken shoulder,” Rick managed to say through clenched teeth. “I’ve had worse.”

“Alexis!” Like his ex-wife.

“Mom!”

While Mary hugged Alexis, Castle looked back at Volkov. The mobster was on his knees, trying to stem the bleeding from his severed arm. “How… how…” he stammered, his wide eyes flicking back and forth between Hunt and Willow, who was setting down now.

Hunt shot him in the head instead of answering.

Castle sighed. The perfect moment for a good quip, wasted.

*****

**Île-de-France, December 2009**

Kate Beckett didn’t look back when the SUV in which she was sitting left the grounds of Volkov’s manor. She didn’t need to see how the first flames were flickering inside, rapidly devouring the wooden furniture and paneling, growing until they would ignite the gas streaming out of the open lines. She didn’t want to see it either.

The gun in her hand was enough of a reminder of what she had done. Killed humans in cold blood. Of course, they had been criminals - murderous kidnappers - and Alexis’s life had been at stake, but cops didn’t act like she had acted. Good cops didn’t. Bad cops, vigilantes, government killers and criminals acted like that. Kate wondered in which of those categories she fit.

Sighing, she looked up. She was in the third row of the SUV. Vi was driving, with Hunt in the passenger seat. The middle row was taken up by Alexis and Castle, though the way Rick was hugging his daughter, another passenger would have been easily able to fit in there as well. Like Mary, who was sitting next to Kate and looking at Castle and his daughter, their daughter, with what Kate thought was both jealousy and relief. Father and daughter were talking, but Kate couldn’t make out what they were saying - a few bullet holes had managed to ruin the insulation, and the noise of the air flow made normal conversation rather difficult.

They drove into a warehouse near Paris, where they changed cars. Mary must have noticed her glances during the drive since walked over to Kate while the Slayers - with much grumbling and pouting - unloaded the weapons and other gear from the cars. Castle was sitting on an improvised bench and wasn’t showing any sign of letting Alexis out of arm’s reach anytime soon.

“You’ve grown since I last saw you.”

Kate’s first impulse was to snap at the other woman. She had heard quite enough remarks about the age difference between her and Castle - especially after someone had spilled that she had met him as a fan when she was twelve - and she wasn’t in the mood for more. But Castle’s ex-wife wasn’t wearing the nasty smile of the typical socialite bimbo Kate had met since she started going to parties with Castle. Instead, she looked simply tired. So Kate forced herself to smile as well. “It’s been a while, yes.” Which might have been a slight dig at the other woman’s age, just in case Kate was wrong.

“You look rather down considering that we saved Alexis.”

Kate narrowed her eyes slightly. What was Mary implying? “I’m happy, very happy, that she’s safe. But I’m not that happy with what I did to save her.”

Mary looked puzzled. “You are a police officer. You have killed before.”

“Not like this. We attacked them like…” She didn’t want to say criminals. “... like soldiers in a war. We killed them all, without giving them a chance to surrender.” Not that she would have had any jurisdiction in France anyway.

“We are in a war. A war against demons that see humanity as prey, that would slaughter humans like cattle, to feed or simply out of pleasure.” Mary’s tone reminded Kate of a preacher.

“Volkov and his men were humans, though, not demons,” she countered.

“They attacked one of our own, which meant they fought for the enemy - knowingly or not. We cannot afford to treat them differently. We’re soldiers, not police officers.”

“I am a police officer,” Kate answered. “A detective.”

“You were one,” Mary stated, “until you found out the truth and decided to fight. Now you’re a soldier as well.”

Kate wanted to deny it, wanted to tell the woman that she wasn’t a watcher, wasn’t a demon hunter, but a cop first and foremost. But that would have been a lie, she realised. Compared to the dangers Castle and Vi fought, fighting crime was… it wasn’t unimportant, but Castle needed her help far more than the precinct.

“Richard took a while to recognise that himself,” Mary said with a faint smile, nodding towards Rick. “He deluded himself for years, tried to claim that he had retired from the war. But all he was doing was taking a break to raise Alexis. Once he was needed, he stepped up without hesitation and did what he had to, to save the world. As we all did, and will keep doing. You, me, Rick and soon Alexis as well.”

Kate didn’t want to dwell on that. Not so soon after killing… she didn’t exactly know how many she had killed. Others had shot at the same people. So she snorted. “That’s the weirdest talk I ever had with the ex of a boyfriend.”

“You haven’t talked to Gina then, I take it,” Mary said, with another faint smile. “I still don’t know why Rick decided to marry that woman. Alexis ruled out demonic possession - eventually.”

Kate laughed - she had met Gina, after all. “I wouldn’t rule it out myself - Gina’s, that is.”

Mary laughed as well. “We checked for that, too. Thoroughly.”

Kate saw that Rick was glancing back at them now, and had a slightly worried look on his face. Giving in to a mischievous impulse, she turned to Mary. “So is it true that it was love at first sight when you met Castle, just delayed, as he put it?”

Mary’s laugh was even louder this time. “If he hadn’t been hurt I would have been tempted to stake him a little, actually.”

Kate nodded, understanding that feeling all too well. “He grows on you, though.”

“Eventually. He’s a good man, a good father, but a terrible child.”

Kate could only agree with that description. Emphatically.

Castle was looking very worried.

*****

**Over the Atlantic Ocean, December 2009**

“What did you talk about with Mary?”

Kate Beckett clenched her teeth and pressed her eyes shut. “Castle! I told you - we just talked about our first impressions of you. Nothing more. Now go away! I need to sleep or I’ll be dead on arrival.”

What good was a luxurious private jet with big seats that changed into beds if your fellow travelers didn’t let you sleep? Especially if your fellow travelers only consisted of Vi, Castle and Alexis, the Scoobies having disembarked at the layover in London.

“That talk was far too long for ‘It was love at first sight’!” Castle whispered.

“Shouldn’t you be with Alexis?” The girl would have nightmares about her ordeal, Kate was certain.

“She sent me away.”

Probably because Castle had managed to annoy even her, Kate thought snidely. “She didn’t mean it.”

“I know.”

“So, go back to her. And let me sleep. If I have to face Will without a wink of sleep, I’m likely to shoot him.” Kate opened her eyes and glared at him.

“You know, that isn’t exactly an argument for letting you sleep…”

“I will shoot you right afterwards!” she hissed.

“Vi will protect me!”

“No, I won’t. I want to sleep as well, and you’re too loud!” came the yell from further down the cabin.

Castle glanced at the curtain behind which his Slayer was apparently also trying to sleep and sighed. “Whatever Mary told you about me, don’t believe her! Unless it’s flattering. In that case, believe her.” With a curt nod, he took a step back and closed the curtain around her seat.

Kate grinned - Castle had reacted exactly like Mary had predicted. She did know him very well. Better than Kate, even. Probably. She frowned at that thought.

But then, Kate hadn’t been with Rick that long. Yet.

With that thought, she fell asleep.

*****

**New York, December 2009**

“I don’t believe for a moment that Castle paid any ransom. We didn’t hear about any ransom demand!”

Even though she had slept for most of the flight, Kate Beckett was sorely tempted to shoot Will. In the foot, maybe. Or the butt. “It was relayed to Alexis’s mother. Probably because they knew Castle’s lines would be monitored by you.”

“And why hasn’t he contacted us at once?”

“Because it was out of your jurisdiction. The proper authorities in the United Kingdom were informed and handled the affair.” Kate wasn’t even lying - technically, handling the kidnapping was covered by the Council’s charter. Whether or not the British police would share that view was another question. But they didn’t know about it - all they would have been told was that it was a matter of national security. Which, incidentally, was correct as well.

And because she hadn’t slept that long, and couldn’t shoot Will, she added: “So, both girls were released unharmed after the ransom was paid. That’s not going to look good in your report.”

Will worked his jaw without saying a word, then turned around and headed to the break room. Whether he was going to take a break, or to break something, Kate couldn’t tell. But if it was the latter, then she hoped that he’d pick the coffee maker. Castle had really rubbed off on her, she realised. Or it was just the lack of sleep, and the stress. And the nightmares related to the battle.

“Detective Beckett.”

“Agent Walker.” She nodded to the older woman.

“What happened in France?”

Walker wasn’t even commenting on the scene with Will, Kate thought. She was either very focused, or knew that Will was ‘too close to this case’ as well, to borrow Walker’s own words. Kate didn’t really care either way. She simply repeated what she had told Will. “The ransom demand was delivered to Castle’s first wife, Mary Wilkinson. Friends of hers arranged the exchange.”

“In France.”

“I can’t tell you anything else, Agent Walker.”

“You’re still a detective of the New York Police Department. I expect your cooperation with a federal investigation.”

“I’m sorry, Agent Walker, but you will have to pass such questions through the proper channels. I was not involved in any official capacity - which you were already aware of before I left the country - and therefore I am not under any obligation to answer your questions. That was explained quite clearly to me.”

Walker knew as well as Kate that that wasn’t true, but there was nothing the woman could do, other than pass the request up the chain of command until it reached an official in the know, who would bury it. And she knew that as well, if not the reasons for the burial.

“If that is all, I’ll return home. Alexis was not physically hurt, but it was a traumatising experience.”

“Aren’t you going to ask what happened to the other victim?”

“I was informed that she was released after ransom was paid.” Kate hoped that Esposito and Ryan were not listening in and giving themselves away.

“That was true. Though this happened in upstate New York.” And if they hadn’t caught the kidnappers, then the El-Haddads probably hadn’t cooperated with the FBI either. Walker frowned. “One victim, flown to Europe. Another driven  a few dozen miles north. That doesn’t add up.”

Kate agreed. “No, it doesn’t.”

When Kate didn’t say anything else, Walker’s frow turned into a scowl, and she walked away without a further word.

Kate had to hide a grin - then sighed. Castle was a really bad influence on her.

*****

To Kate’s surprise, Castle’s father was still in Castle’s apartment when she arrived after her trip to the precinct. She had expected him to be gone - to finish what dirty work he had interrupted to deal with the kidnapping, or to report to his superiors. Hunt looked… not quite furious, but certainly not happy. Castle on the other looked like he was having trouble not laughing out loud each time he glanced at his father. Which was every few seconds, or so it seemed. Martha was presumably with Alexis in her room, since Kate didn’t see either of the two. And she caught a glimpse of Vi in the kitchen.

No choice. Kate sighed and went straight to Rick. “What’s going on now?” she demanded.

“Ah, well, there have been complications…” Rick began.

“The short version, Rick. I’ve had a long day.”

“My father has been reassigned by his superiors.” Rick grinned widely.

“To ‘paranormal liaisons’,” Hunt cut in.

“That’s their code for us,” Castle added.

“It’s a desk job.” Hunt was glaring at his son.

“Bah!” Rick waved his hand. “When an apocalypse is looming, it’s all hands on deck, everyone fights, no one quits.” His impression of a drill sergeant was still awful, Kate thought.

His father raised his eyebrows at him. “And how often are you facing an apocalypse?”

“Roughly once a year, I think,” Castle said, frowning and rubbing his chin. “I’d have to check with London for more precise data.”

Hunt looked shocked.

“Why do you think the Scoobies were all acting like they did? Compared to fighting a Hellgod, or the First Evil, kidnappers are nothing to get really excited about,” Castle laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll fit in soon enough. Next mission, you’ll be cracking inappropriate jokes with the rest of us.”

That was what Kate was afraid of. And Hunt looked like he shared her fear.

*****

 


	24. Third Time's a Charm Part 1

**New York, January 2010**

Richard Castle rotated his shoulder, expecting it to hurt. It didn’t. I seemed as if his doctor had been correct - his broken shoulder had healed. Finally. He was thoroughly sick of moving with the utmost care just so he wouldn’t feel like someone was stabbing a glowing hot needle into his flesh. He hadn’t even been able to open his Christmas gifts by himself! Although finding safe positions to enjoy Kate’s special gift had been…

He sighed at the memory and straightened his collar. It was time for him to return to his work. All of his work, at that - he didn’t need two working shoulders to revise his latest draft. “Let’s head to the precinct!” he announced to Vi, who was lounging on the couch and munching on last evening’s leftovers - Kate had left for work in the morning, Alexis was in London for the rest of the week, with Mary, and Martha was in the Hamptons. With an older gentleman Rick neither knew nor wanted to know. His father hadn’t visited since Christmas, citing work keeping him busy. So much for having a desk job, Rick thought.

“Finally decided to stop being lazy?” Vi grinned while she rose from the couch with the fluid grace of an experienced Slayer.

“I’ve been recovering from an injury!” he answered. He wasn’t pouting, not at all.

“Ah, so you admit that they don’t need your brain, but your brawn? As pitiful as that is.”

“You would know that, of course,” Castle retorted.

Vi took half a minute to get the implied insult. He smirked when she gasped at him. Point Castle.

*****

“So, when are you gonna ask her?” Vi asked five minutes later.

“Ask who? And what?” Castle tried to sound casual while Vi took a turn with just two wheels touching the ground.

“Beckett of course. And as far as what you will be asking her...” Vi grinned. “Will you make me the most henpecked man alive, and marry me?” Her impression of him was abysmal, in his opinion. And he’d know best how he sounded.

“Why do you think I am planning to marry again, after Mary and Gina?” he shot back in the tone of a man who had survived the worst the world could throw at him. His hand wasn’t even near the pocket where he kept the ring.

“Because you never learn,” she answered, grinning at him while overtaking a speeding delivery van. “And because I overheard you practicing.”

Damn that Slayer hearing! He sighed. “I need to find the right moment. I can’t ask her next to a corpse, or after a fight with demons. It has to be perfect.” She deserved nothing less.

“Right after a fight with demons would be perfect!” Vi said.

He looked at her. Dear Lord, she was serious! Utterly serious.

*****

“So… middle-aged man in an expensive suit takes a shortcut through a side alley. Ends up shot and missing his wallet and presumably expensive watch.” Castle stared down at the corpse on the ground between two trashcans. “Apart from the apparent lack of any sense of self-preservation, that looks like a really boring case. Barely worth a detective’s attention.”

“Thank you for your input, Castle.” Kate shot him a glare that made him wince. Even if Vi had been correct, this was totally not the moment he was waiting for.

“So, even you think that this wasn’t the work of supernatural monsters?” Lanie asked, checking a probe.

He glanced at Vi, who was shaking her head. She hadn’t smelled any demon then. “No unexplained loss of blood. No missing body parts - he still has his liver, as you just demonstrated, and many demons love human livers - and a gunshot wound as probable cause of death. That looks about as supernatural as the average murder-robbery. Of which this case looks like a textbook example.”

“And who is the murderer then, oh great detective?” Ryan had his witty moments, Castle admitted. Unfortunately, they happened often when Rick was the target.

“Random robber?” He shrugged. “He’ll probably try to hock the watch at the pawnshop of his confidence.”

Kate frowned, but judging by the sighs from Esposito and Ryan, they expected to check a lot of pawnshops in the near future.

“We’ll need to ID him as well. Check the missing persons.”

“If only people had the foresight to wear tags with their name and address on them,” Castle said.

“Not everyone expects to be killed and robbed,” Kate answered.

“It also helps cab drivers deliver you to your flat.” Rick caught her raising eyebrow. “I’m definitely not speaking from experience!”

It didn’t look like she believed him. Damn.

*****

“We’ve got the ID of our victim,” Kate announced an hour later, dropping a picture on her desk. Castle interrupted his latest attempt to set a new record of turns on a swiveling chair with a single push and peered at it.

“Frank Bellardo. Fifty-five years old, independently wealthy - and an antique book collector.”

“Oh.” Castle perked up. Antique books often meant magic books!

“He was at an auction last night, and never returned to his apartment. The maid called the police this morning.”

“The Vanderwilt collection?” Castle asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Kate frowned at him.

He sighed and was about to start his next attempt when her glare stopped him. “A British librarian already checked it out before the auction catalogue was made. There are no dangerous books in there.” Not any more - they had taken the two real grimoires into custody.

“It’s still a murder we have to solve, Castle.” Kate’s smile was anything but friendly. “KiIlers have to be caught even if they aren’t demons.”

Definitely not the right moment either, he thought as he stood up. “Then let’s get to it, so we can solve a more interesting case next time!”

*****

“Ah, yes, I know Mister Bellardo. He’s a serious collector, and often attends our auctions.” The old man looked like a distinguished auctioneer had to look, Castle thought: Grey temples, dark hair, open, honest face, and slightly boring.

“Ah. Do you remember if he made any purchase yesterday evening?” Beckett, of course, was only interested in the facts pertaining to their case.

“Yes, in fact. He purchased the diary of an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American Revolution. An original edition from 1786. Quite rare - it wasn’t very popular in Britain, and few copies reached the USA.”

“Was anyone else interested in that diary?” Kate asked while Castle gestured at Vi, who was making faces at a particularly ugly statue in the corner, to stop. The Slayer stuck her tongue out at him - fortunately, behind the auctioneer’s back.

The man smiled. “Yes, indeed. There was a fierce bidding war between Mister Bellardo and Mister Cartwright.”

“Mister Cartwright?”

“Another collector, a regular as well.”

“Did Bellardo and Cartwright know each other?”

“Oh, yes. They were… friendly rivals, I think would fit them best. Fiercely competitive during an auction, but good friends otherwise.” The auctioneer sighed. “All of us will miss Mister Bellardo.”

First among them the auctioneer’s commission, Castle thought. But they had their first suspect, at least.

“Do you record the auctions?” Kate went on.

“Oh, yes, we do. It was deemed necessary when one customer claimed that his bid had been ignored and sued us.”

They got the records as well. As they left the auction house, Castle saw two uniforms overseeing the victim’s car being towed off. “That’s weird… if he left his car here, but was found in that alley there…”

“...then he wasn’t taking a shortcut to his car, but to somewhere else,” Kate completed his thought. “Or with someone else.”

*****

“Frank is dead? Murdered? Robbed? Oh my God!”

Mister Cartwright either had the talent to become a professional actor, or he was genuinely shocked about his ‘friendly rival’s death’, Castle thought.

“I didn’t know that anyone took the rumours of the diary hiding a treasure map seriously!” Cartwright mumbled while shaking his head. “If I had won the bid, that could have been me!”

So much for his empathy for Bellardo, Castle thought. But...

“Treasure map?” Beckett asked.

“There were rumours, silly rumours, not substantiated by any serious expert, that Commander Baker had found the map to a buried pirate’s treasure during his service in the West Indies. Completely ridiculous, of course - almost no actual pirate buried their treasure, and those who did either recovered it quickly, as Sir Francis Drake had done, or lost it, like Captain Kidd.” Cartwright shook his head. “I can’t believe anyone actually murdered Frank over that!”

“Where were you last night between ten and midnight, Mister Cartwright?” Kate focused on the case again, not on the interesting bits of lore, Castle thought as he studied the books on display in Cartwright’s living room. Who knew where a dangerous magical tome could be hiding? Vi was sniffing around as well - literally.

“After the auction? I went straight home. I would have gone for a drink with Frank, but he said he had an appointment.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“The appointment?”

“No, the time you arrived at your home.”

“The garage has a camera. Do you want the recordings?”

“Yes, please.” Kate stood up and stashed her notebook.

*****

“You’ve been rather quiet today,” Kate said as they drove back to the precinct. “Anything wrong?”

Just the moment, Castle thought. Out loud he said. “No… I just didn’t want to jump back in with both legs, you know - I’ve been away for weeks, after all.” He touched his shoulder for emphasis.

Vi coughed, and he could tell that she was grinning widely.

Beckett, on the backseat, frowned. “You’ve been chomping at the bit to get back on a case for weeks.”

“Oh, kinky! Do you use a riding crop as well?” Vi exclaimed.

While Kate rolled her eyes at the madly giggling Slayer, Rick sighed. Definitely the wrong moment now.

*****

“Does the alibi check out?” Castle asked as he entered the precinct with three cups from the closest Starbuck’s.

“It’s his car on the record. But the driver isn’t clearly visible. Hat and beard match Cartwright, but...” Kate shook her head. “Something doesn’t add up here.”

“I’ll say! Who wears a hat in this day and age?” Castle shook his head. “Not even Rupert does, and he still thinks of computers as some newfangled fad that will pass! And that beard… Santa Claus would be envious!”

“We’ve got a hit with a pawnshop!” Esposito announced. “Someone sold the victim’s watch to one in Queens.” He and Ryan looked rather tired. “The clerk didn’t remember anything, of course, but we got the security camera’s records.”

Which, as it turned out a few minutes later, were not as helpful as Castle had hoped.

“That’s the worst quality in a camera I’ve ever seen! How old is that thing? Was it sold used  when Hollywood started to phase out silent movies?” Castle complained. The longer they were stuck on that case, the longer he had to wait until he could ask Kate.

“I think they would lose some business if the quality was any better,” Esposito said. “But he’s recognisable anyway. Sort of,” he amended when Rick stared at him.

“He’s right. I’ve seen the man before... “ Kate bit her lower lip in that cute manner of hers, Castle saw. “And he looked just like that…”

“The records from the auction house!” Rick and Kate said in unison.

Half an hour and two telephone calls later, they had their suspect’s name: Martin Gavin.

*****

Two hours later, they had their suspect’s body. In the morgue.

“Cause of death: Two gunshot wounds to the chest,” Lanie said. “Different calibre than the ones that killed Bellardo. He was killed about six hours ago.”

“Shortly after he pawned the watch,” Kate said.

“Let’s hope this is not another dead end,” Castle said. Neither of the two women laughed. “Tough crowd,” he muttered, then blinked. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the man’s face. The lower half was covered with red welts.

“I haven’t tested it yet, but it looks like an allergic reaction,” Lanie said.

“What did he do, eat shrimps by burying his face in the plate?” Castle scoffed. “That looks like…” His eyes widened. “The beard! Glue!”

“He had a fake beard! He was the alibi.” Kate exclaimed as she turned towards Castle. “He left with Cartwright’s car, wearing his hat and a fake beard. Cartwright asked Bellardo to go get a drink, and led him into the alley.”

“The suit on the records matches Cartwright’s,” Castle added. “But if he had to kill him today, to tie off the loose end, then he couldn’t have an alibi for the second murder. And he either knew where Gavin was going to pawn the watch he gave him…”

“Possible, but unlikely. Unless Gavin trusted him,” Kate cut in.

“...or he had a way to track Gavin.” Castle grinned.

“We need traffic cam footage. And someone to go through Cartwright’s trash.”

Castle didn’t even think to ask as they rushed out of the morgue.

*****

“All that planning, and then he is caught because he used cheap glue that professional actors don’t use anymore.” Castle shook his head. “And because the garbage truck was late.”

“And because I found the missing diary,” Vi added.

“That’s not evidence. We can’t really tell a judge that you tracked it by the scent of blood.” Kate shook her head.

Vi pouted, and Castle cut in before the two could start to bicker. “What’s important is that we got the perp, and he confessed. When faced with his beard. I knew that beard was hiding something!” He shook his head. “And he tried the old double-blind bluff, thinking that if he mentioned the treasure map - the reason for the murder, given his financial situation - we wouldn’t suspect him. He was simply too clever for his own good!”

Kate smiled, and Rick touched the pocket where he carried the ring. After a solved case, Kate was always in a good mood. Not the perfect moment to pop the question, but good enough. Maybe after dinner, in a more romantic mood… candles on the table… that would only work if he could get rid of Vi, though. Well, why not go for broke?

“How about I invite you to dinner to celebrate another solved case?” He smiled at Kate.

“Yes! Giant Sirloin Steak, here I come!” Vi yelled.

Castle’s smile slipped a bit, and Kate laughed. “It looks like the restaurant has already been decided.”

He hadn’t intended to invite Vi as well. But the damage was done. All he could do now was save face.

“Yes.” Castle nodded, forcing himself not to glare at his happy Slayer.

*****

**New York, January 2010**

“Hm… do you have something for which you need to apologise?” Kate’s tone was light, but her smile had a suspicious edge to it as she cut another piece off her steak. Or so Richard Castle thought.

“No, of course not! I’d never! How did you arrive at such an outlandish conclusion?” He was the picture of wrongly accused innocence.

“That’s the third time in a week you have invited me to dinner - in my favourite restaurant. Where I know you have to make reservations weeks in advance, normally.” She leaned forward, and Rick thought that her smile turned rather predatory. “So… why are you doing this?”

The truth would have been that the first time they went out, Vi was with them, and the second time, their evening was interrupted by a frantic call from one of his informants about a demon gang muscling in on Clark’s, spoiling his plan to propose to her. Rick couldn’t tell her that, of course. “Can’t I do something nice for my girlfriend more than once a week?” He pursed his lips. “I wasn’t aware that there’s a limit on such things - my past experiences generally indicated that there was a weekly minimum, actually.”

“That sounds plausible, but you didn’t make such an effort when you were trying to get me to date you.” She was narrowing her eyes now, and her mouth was forming the same line it usually did when she was pushing a suspect into a confession. It wasn’t nearly as amusing from this perspective, Rick realised.

“I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to buy your affections. Back then, I mean.”

“So you’re trying to buy my affections now?” She was joking, but there was an edge to it. A small, dull edge, but… Rick certainly couldn’t propose to her now. She would think he had been trying to butter her up before popping the question.

That he had planned exactly that didn’t change that the moment was lost. For now.

*****

He had barely stepped into his flat when he was accosted by his Slayer. “And?” Vi asked with wide eyes - about five inches from his face - and a wider smile. A smile that started to falter when she looked over his shoulder and didn’t spot Beckett, apparently.

“I didn’t ask her.”

“What?” Vi stared at him with her mouth hanging open. “What happened? Did a demon cult attack the restaurant? Did a guy keel over at the table next to you, frothing at the mouth from poison? Was she get called in to work?”

“It simply wasn’t the right moment.”

“What? Her favourite restaurant, a private table, you even bribed the musicians… didn’t you tell me before you left that it would be perfect?”

He sighed. “Well… it was too perfect. She thinks I did something I wanted to apologise for. Or butter her up.”

“Well, wasn’t that your plan?”

He glared at her. “Not the point.”

“You said you wanted it to be perfect.” She was shaking her head as if she was Alexis. It was eery, actually.

“To quote the younger generation: I wised up.” He smiled at her, showing his teeth.

“No one speaks like that any more, Rick.” His Slayer sighed. “So, what do you do now?”

“I can’t organise another such evening. I’ll have to be spontaneous. And patient. When the opportunity presents itself, I’ll ask her right away.” That was a sound plan. To adapt to adverse circumstances was the hallmark of a smart man.

“Ah… you’ll be there, box in hand, and as soon as you sense a weakness - wham! You’re on your knee, holding up the box, and presenting the ring. Between her and the exit so she can’t escape.” Vi nodded enthusiastically.

He couldn’t tell if she was serious or sarcastic. “Not quite like that. I’ll just go with the flow.” He made a waving gesture with his hand.

“The flow usually ends up in a drain, Rick.”

He rolled his eyes at her. Why were young people so cynical these days? Maybe it only applied to Slayers, who generally thought that fighting was foreplay and the end of a tight victorious battle was the most romantic moment ever.

“But don’t wait too long, Rick! You’ve got a limited window of opportunity. Seize the day! Make your own luck!”

“We’ve been together for months now,” he corrected her. “I doubt that she’ll leave me just because I don’t propose in time - she’s a modern woman, and would simply tell me if she wants me to ask.” Which, kind of, was why he needed the right moment. “So there is no need to rush things, trust me.”

The way her face fell told him that she didn’t share his opinion. But… he narrowed his eyes at her. “Vi! Did you bet on when I would propose?”

“Uh… no?”

“Vi!”

“Oops… I think I need to go on my late night patrol now. I’ll be back in the morning, don’t wait up for me, Rick!”

“Vi!” he yelled, but she was already out of the door.

Slayers!

And Scoobies!

*****

“No coffee?” Kate greeted him when he sat down at her desk.

“And good morning to you as well, Detective Beckett.” He smiled at her.

She rolled her eyes in response. “Are you cutting me off from my daily coffee because of my comments last evening?”

She really needed her coffee, he thought. “No.” It was, actually, in a way - Vi had stayed out too late to avoid him, presumably, and so she wasn’t around to drive him to the precinct, which meant he didn’t stop at Starbucks so he’d not miss the right moment, should it happen. Which was looking increasingly improbable this morning. “I was late already, so I didn’t stop for coffee.”

She drew her lips back in that doubting expression of her. “You didn’t want to be late, so you decide to drink the break room’s coffee? Didn’t you call it coloured dishwater last week?”

“I said calling it dishwater would be an insult to dishwater,” he corrected her.

“Exactly So what is eating you? And don’t say it’s nothing!” She leaned forward.

He closed his mouth. She rolled her eyes at him again. There was something to dating stupid girls, he thought. They weren’t even half as perceptive as Kate. But he was a bestselling author and experienced Watcher. He could handle this. “It’s just the stress. I’m always like this right before a new book comes out. And since this time, it’s a new series, it’s even worse.”

“You said the test readers loved it.” She leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs.

“Of course they did!” It was one of his best, after all!

“And that they haven’t been wrong yet.”

“Yes. But there’s a first time for everything.” Although apparently, there wasn’t a third time for proposing. Not a good time, at least.

“Really? The same people who loved the stripper name might be wrong?” Her eyebrows rose.

Kate’s sarcasm was worse when she hadn’t had her usual coffee, Rick noted - not for the first time.

“Everybody loved the name!” he defended his book.

“Probably because sticking my character with it meant theirs wouldn’t be saddled with it.”

“I assure you that my test readers are professionals who would never compromise their integrity for such selfish reasons.”

“I’ve met them, Castle.”

She had him there. And she knew it - she was smirking.

“I’ll have you know that my editor also loves the name!” He wasn’t beaten yet.

“Gina? Being in favour of saddling the new girlfriend of her ex with a stripper name? What a surprise!”

He winced. He couldn’t really refute that - Gina was… a character, to put it diplomatically. A character who, if put in a book, the readers would love to see die, and painfully at that, to put it less diplomatically.

“Beckett! We’ve got a case! Body down a manhole!”

And once again, one man’s - or woman’s - misfortune - was another’s salvation. Castle was up and halfway to the elevator before Esposito had told them where the body had been found.

*****

“Maintenance technicians found her when they were called in to deal with a clogged sewer,” Ryan informed them when they arrived.

Castle winced at the stench. “Murder, and … what’s the punishment for causing the toilets in an entire block to overflow?” It probably was significantly worse, he guessed.

Kate ignored him - she was always so professional - but Ryan snickered, at least.

“Do you have a cause of death yet?” Kate asked Lanie.

“Well… judging by the lack of blood, the two puncture wounds in her carotid artery, and the lack of other visible wounds, I would guess exsanguination. Or, as Castle would say,” Lanie added with a smirk, “death by vampire bite.”

She looked rather surprised when no one present laughed.

*****

“So… is it a vampire?” Kate asked as Lanie was starting to frown at them.

Rick rubbed his chin. “I don’t think so - there are only two puncture wounds. A vampire’s bite leaves a different scar.” He pulled the collar of his shirt down. “Something like this.”

“You were bitten by a vampire.” Lanie’s voice dripped with doubt and no small amount of scorn.

“Only the once!” Rick retorted with his best roguish grin. “I killed every other vampire that tried to bite me.”

“That sounds like a rather dangerous delusion, Castle.”

“Vampires are indeed very dangerous.” He nodded sagely. “Incidentally, when is Perlmutter supposed to be back from his sabbatical?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” The coroners usually told their own about demons and vampires, but Perlmutter had been rather slow to fill Lanie in.

“Castle’s all about ‘nothing’ lately.” Kate hadn’t forgotten their awkward conversation, then. He pouted at her, but she ignored his plea.

“Well, we have a murder to solve!” He nodded emphatically. If it wasn’t a vampire, then it probably was someone trying to fake a vampire attack. And they might have ties to the supernatural. Or maybe it was the work of a dumb demon trying to frame vampires. “Let’s focus on that, instead of on me. I think we can safely discard the vampire attack theory for the time being.” Unless it was a vampire that had only its fangs and no other teeth left.

“What? Are you feeling alright, Castle?”

Lanie really needed to be told about the things that went bump at night, Castle decided.

*****

“It’s definitely not a vampire,” Lanie declared later, pointing at the neck of the corpse. “The second puncture wound was made after the body had been drained of blood. Someone planted a drain tube in the first wound - see how the edges of the wounds differ?”

Castle nodded. Unless it was a one-toothed vampire. And he had never heard of such a creature. “No blood in her mouth either?” The last thing anyone wanted was a newly risen vampire in the morgue. On the other hand, that would easily convince Lanie that vampires existed. If she survived the experience.

“No.” Lanie shook her head.

“So, with the supernatural ruled out…”

Castle interrupted Kate. “Only vampires have actually been ruled out. Human blood has many occult uses, so this could be the work of a witch, a demon, or an enterprising human working for such customers.”

“It could have been a vampire not wanting to draw attention,” Kate retorted.

“A double bluff? That would be a very elaborate plan for a bloodsucker.” Castle shook his head. “I don’t think this was the work of a vampire.” They preferred to suck blood directly; Spike complained often enough about sucking blood through a straw.

“Are you two arguing about what kind of fantasy creatures could have done this?” Lanie sounded as if she was considering having both of them committed. Or just Castle - women tended to blame the man in such situations, in his experience. Then again, from an outsider perspective, it might look as if he had influenced Kate.

“Just humouring him,” Kate said with a grin. “He has been in a weird mood lately.”

Lanie shook her head. She didn’t look as if she was convinced, but she also didn’t look like she wanted to call the shrinks down on them.

Castle could live with that. He was rich, after all, so he was at worst eccentric, not crazy.

*****

“We’ve got an ID on our vic,” Esposito announced when they returned to the bullpen. “We got a hit in the immigration database. Eleonore Petiton, Haitian national. Her tourist visa expired nine months ago, but it seems she stayed in the country illegally.”

There might be a voodoo connection, Castle thought. Human blood was used in a number of the darker rituals. The kind that got houngans slayed. By Slayers. On the other hand, disposing of the body like this seemed rather… not disrespectful. Untraditional. Zombies were a thing, after all. “Do we have her address?”

“That wasn’t in the database.” Obviously, or she would have been deported.

“We’ll have to ask around in the local Haitian communities.” Kate didn’t sound as if she was looking forward to it. Castle wasn’t looking forward to bothering countless people with a picture and a name either. It was much easier when he could let Vi beat a few informers up. “All of us,” she added when Esposito and Ryan started to shuffle away.

All but Vi - she was checking the local scene for vampires. Just in case this was actually the work of bloodsucker trying to be clever.

*****

It took them four hours of asking street vendors and their customers until someone finally recognised the picture and was willing to tell them the vic’s address. A very ramshackle-looking building.

“I’m pretty sure that this violates several crucial sections of New York’s building code,” Rick muttered when he and Kate made their way up to the second floor through a stairwell that mountain climbers would be wary of.

“We’re here for a murder, Rick, not for building code violations,” Kate said, navigating the broken down stairs in her high heels in defiance of physics and common sense. As long as he was bringing up the rear, though, Rick wouldn’t complain. The heels did wonderful things to her rear.

“I’m certain that if we fall to our deaths once the stairs collapse underneath us, this will become a murder investigation,” he shot back.

“Does that mean you think that you might want to lose a few pounds?” Kate smirked, then turned to a door before he could think of an answer that wouldn’t get him shot - women were very sensitive about their weight. Two marriages and dozens of relationships had taught him that. “We’re here.”

‘Here’ turned out to be a depressingly run down small apartment - a single room, a kitchenette, bathroom dating back to the Great War, and a walk-in closet masquerading as a second room. And either she had been fond of removing all drawers and emptying them on her bed, or someone had ransacked the place already. And without taking all the valuables.

And someone had painted a ritual circle on the floor. In blood. Surrounded by melted candles.

“I think we just found the missing blood from our vic,” Castle said. He snapped a few pictures with his phone and sent them to the Council. If that was a houngan’s work then things had just turned serious. Serious enough to call Vi to make her stop hunting vampires, and help them out here. Just in case.

Sighing, he stood up again and looked around. “I bet she collected the furniture before the trashmen could,” Castle muttered. “Points for recycling?” He prodded an armoire with his foot, and the thing collapsed when a broken leg gave way. “It was broken already!” he quickly defended himself - he hadn’t hit it that hard.

Kate wasn’t listening, though - she was picking up a picture that had been pinned to the underside of the armoire. “She had a boyfriend,” she pointed out. “Or a lover.”

Castle peered at the picture. The vic and a middle-aged man, their arms around each other. “And a well-off one,” he remarked. “That’s a designer cashmere scarf. And a tailor-made jacket.” He looked at Kate. “A poor illegal immigrant, living in such squalor, and a man able to spend several hundred bucks on a scarf and double that on a suit?” He shook his head. “That’s not a pretty picture.”

*****

By the time they reached the precinct, Vi was already there. It didn’t take long to fill in her and the others.

“A voodoo ritual? With her blood?” Esposito sounded almost scared. No, he was scared, Castle realised.

“We don’t know yet. Could be a fake.” He shrugged. “Experts are checking the pictures I mailed them.”

“Better be fake,” Esposito muttered. “Don’t wanna become a zombie.”

“Don’t worry, Javier! I’ll protect you!” Vi beamed at the detective, but when he just nodded, without even looking at her, her smile turned into a scowl. Castle shook his head - a houngan wasn’t even half as dangerous as a scorned Slayer.

He was about to comment on that - a good Watcher should never miss a chance to keep their Slayer humble - when his phone vibrated. A brief glance later, he smiled. “It’s from Dawn. The circle doesn’t match any voodoo circles in the Council’s archives. I guess you won’t have to walk around with the guy’s picture and ask if anyone knows this murderous houngan.”

Kate rolled her eyes, but Esposito looked relieved. No wonder the man was no longer chasing Vi.

“Back to our suspect, “Kate said in her ‘no-nonsense’ voice. “Or at least our person of interest. We have his picture, but I don’t think we’ll find him by walking around designer boutiques and asking sales clerks.”

“That would actually work if he is rich enough,” Castle cut in. “People greet me by name in all the expensive boutiques.”

“That’s because you pay for Buffy’s shopping tours,” Kate retorted. “Do we have her cell phone records?”

“Nothing.” Ryan answered. “She probably had a prepaid anyway, with a fake address.”

Another dead end then, Castle thought. That pun was growing old, too.

“Why would a rich man murder his illegal immigrant girlfriend anyway? He could easily get rid of her by calling the Immigration Office,” Esposito asked.

“I can answer that,” Lanie said, holding up a report. “She was pregnant. Four months in.”

Castle muttered a curse. And he wasn’t the only one.

*****

“So… we have the motive. We have his picture. But we lack his ID,” Rick summed up.

Kate, staring at the murder wall, nodded. “How would a rich man have meet her?”

“Street prostitution,” Ryan answered. “Many rich guys get a kick out picking up hookers, even if they could afford escorts.”

“We don’t know if she was a prostitute. She had a regular job as a waitress, according to her neighbours,” Kate said.

“She was poor enough to need additional income,” Ryan countered.

“If she was, it won’t help us find him.” Castle sighed. “But… we know he isn’t a houngan. Yet he tried to frame a houngan. That means he doesn’t believe in their power.” He grinned. “How about we ask them for help to find the man trying to frame them for murder?” That was an excellent idea!

Strangely, the others didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm. Esposito looked even paler than Ryan!

*****

“I don’t know why anyone is afraid of a houngan!” Vi complained while she drove through New York’s streets with her usual utter lack of care for traffic laws. “I’m much more dangerous than any houngan!”

Rick nodded. “I’m certain that Esposito is afraid of you as well.”

His Slayer growled at him, and he smirked. Point Castle.

“Esposito’s view of the supernatural is irrelevant,” Kate said from the backbench.

“It’s not irrelevant!” Vi protested.

“It’s not relevant for our case,” Kate said, baring her teeth. Almost like a Slayer, Rick thought. Maybe Vi’s idea had some merit? He shook his head. No, the right moment would appear. He just had to be patient.

They arrived at the address of one of the local houngans before the right moment had appeared - Kate and Vi had spent the drive bickering. Rick checked his shotgun before he got out of the Shelby.

“Are you expecting trouble?” Kate asked.

“Not really. But I always pack a shotgun when I might encounter zombies.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at him, looked at the building in front of them - old and dark, perfect for the haunted house in a horror movie - and grabbed her own shotgun from the trunk.

*****

“So… someone is trying to frame me and my colleagues for murder.” Simon Palanquet, one of the leading houngans in New York, slowly shook his head. “And you expect me to deal with him, so you do not have to dirty your Slayer’s hands?” His frown turned into a sneer. “We’re not yours to command.”

“I’d not have asked but ordered, if you were mine to command,” Rick answered before Vi could do more than growl at the man. “But if you find him for us, we can get him arrested and the whole matter dealt with without involving your community.”

“Is that a threat?”

The man had a really low opinion of them, Castle thought. Or he was trying to start a fight. Maybe arriving armed for zombies had sent the wrong message. On the other hand, houngans created zombies. That pretty much put them in the dangerous and suspect categories. “No. A threat would be: ‘If he dies from a curse or other magic, we’ll call the Red Witch and have her deal with you.’ You know how she feels about murder through magic.” Willow had made her point clear, one warlock a time.

“Self-defence is not murder.”

“You’re not under any imminent attack,” Kate pointed out. “It wouldn’t be self-defence.”

“That’s a mundane definition.”

“It’s a definition the Council shares,” Castle corrected the houngan. “It is up to you if you want risk antagonising the Council, instead of helping us help you.”

“You’ll owe us a favour.”

Ah, they were negotiating now, instead of posturing. “A small favour. Just like this.”

“If it was a small favour you wouldn’t need our help.”

“We don’t actually need your help. I can call in the Red Witch. But she might not be too amused if she has to travel to New York to deal with one of your problems.” Castle smiled, showing all of his teeth.

The houngan folded after a few more exchanges, and agreed to send them the address as soon as he had it.

Back in the car, Vi shook her head. “If Willow finds out that you are threatening people using her reputation…”

“She has earned her reputation,” Castle defended himself. “And where is the harm in putting a little pressure on shady practitioners? It means less apocalypses when they stop before they go darkside.” He shrugged. “Besides, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt me.”

He noticed that his Slayer was grinning widely at him, and groaned. “New sword?”

“New sword!”

*****

They had their suspect a day later, and no one would question the ‘anonymous tip’ that told them his name and address. Not when they had the suspect’s picture to show around. DNA analysis confirmed that the man - Alan Mackenzie - had impregnated the victim. His phone records were the icing of the evidence cake - they got them the number of a prepaid phone which had been used extensively in the block Petiton had lived in, as well as at her work. Mackenzie’s lawyer started asking for a plea bargain after being confronted with the evidence - his client’s attempt to deny even knowing the woman had made his position even worse.

More importantly, though, Kate had that smile on her face that Rick loved so much while she was taking down her murder wall. A smile full of pride in her work, and satisfaction that she had brought a killer to justice. And they had been working together on this, very well in fact. Even better, the rest of the crew had already left the precinct. They were alone.

This was the moment he had been waiting for. He reached into his pocket and gripped the box with the ring he had made. “Kate…”

“Kate!” Lanie’s loud voice interrupted him before he could stand up, much less go down on one knee. He glanced to his side and saw the coroner storm towards them.

“Lanie?” Kate asked, turning towards her friend.

“Perlmutter told me! And he told me you knew! Why didn’t you tell me?” Lanie glared at Kate, and then at Rick, tapping her foot. “He told you!”

Rick sighed and sat down again. The moment was gone.

Why couldn’t Perlmutter have waited another day? Granted, Rick had told him to step on it, but… he hadn’t expected the old coroner to actually listen to him!

Someone had it really in for him! Maybe he should check if Gina hadn’t sold her soul to prevent his marriage to Kate.

*****

**New York, January 2010**

Richard Castle had a fresh, hot cup of Kate’s preferred overpriced coffee with him when he entered the 12th Precinct - he could and did learn, despite of what everyone in his family claimed! He also had Vi with him, but that couldn’t be helped - his Slayer had told him bluntly that she’d not let him out of her sight, not so shortly after his meeting with Palanquet. She had claimed that he had a talent for making people mad at him. That, coming from a Slayer!

Kate was at her desk, nose almost buried in some files. He swiftly approached her, ignoring the waving from Ryan - he knew his priorities.

“Good morning!” he greeted her with a bright smile - which almost froze when she raised her head to look at him. Bloodshot eyes, eye bags, and an expression that would have curdled milk at ten yards. Handling her in that state without getting hurt would require every little bit of tact and diplomacy he could muster.

“Bloody hell, Beckett! What did you do, empty out Budweiser by yourself? You look like death warmed over!”

Rick made a mental note to impress upon his Slayer that blunt honesty wasn’t always the best approach. In fact, when it came to women, it was usually the wrong approach.

To his relief, Kate didn’t try to shoot Vi or him, but simply glared at the Slayer instead and hissed: “It was a bottle of Absinthe and some other liquors. And it’s all Castle’s fault!” With that, her glare turned back onto him, and Castle had to wince at the sheer rage contained in her eyes. He smiled weakly and held out her cup. “Coffee?”

“Castle, what did you do?” Vi, always quick to shift the blame, frowned at him.

“I didn’t do anything!” he defended himself while Kate guzzled down half the syrupy concoction in less than a second.

Looking marginally less possessed by an evil spirit, she scoffed. “It’s what he didn’t do that’s the issue! Lanie gave me hell because she hadn’t been told about demons,” she explained in a lower, but still slightly growly voice. Which he knew was a word - he was a bestselling author, after all. If need be, he could create a new word!

“What? That was Perlmutter’s duty! I even told him to get to it a day earlier!” It wasn’t his fault!

“You should have done that far earlier!” She emptied her cup, and Rick felt almost sick thinking about the amount of sugar and caffeine that would enter her blood. “You probably found it too amusing to leave her ignorant so you could make the truth look like a joke!”

“Certainly not!” And he bet that Kate had felt the same - wanting to put one over the all-knowing coroners was completely understandable, after all. As long as they didn’t get hurt.

She huffed. “She was already mad for that. And hearing that her corpses had been checked for demonic possession without her knowledge made it worse!” She eyed his own coffee and he handed the cup over without a word. He knew how to pick his battles. Usually. At least with Kate.

She gulped down his coffee as well, then took a deep breath. “It took half a bottle of Absinthe to calm her down. And I had to match her glass for glass. Sugar cube for sugar cube.”

“Sugar?” Vi blinked. Castle hissed “Later!” at her. The last thing he wanted was his Slayer getting a taste for something that would result in both a sugar rush and inebriation.

“So… you see, it’s all your fault.” Kate growled. “If I hadn’t calmed her down, she would have probably done something to you with her scalpels by now.”

“Well, you have my utmost gratitude for saving me from dismemberment!” Rick said. He was honest, too - doctors, be they surgeons or coroners, were not people you wanted as your enemies. The imminent danger of getting shot having passed, he sat down in his usual seat while Vi, for once, didn’t annoy Beckett by sitting on the edge of the detective’s desk and instead dragged another chair over.

Kate huffed again. “Be glad it’s a slow day - if I had to deal with a case while my head is hurting like this…”

“Stop!” Castle clenched his teeth, hoping he had been in time.

She blinked. “What?”

“Beckett!” the Captain yelled through the bullpen, loud enough to make even Rick, who had neither a hangover nor supernaturally enhanced hearing, wince. “You’ve got a case! Workers found a body stuffed into a cement mixer in a construction site.”

“You just had to tempt Murphy, did you?” Castle sighed, then winced, when Beckett glared at him again, as if this was his fault! Well, it wasn’t - but it certainly wasn’t the right moment to propose to her either. Probably not even the right week.

*****

“So, what are the chances that this is just an accident? Drunk frat boys want to make a barbecue, end up grilling themselves?” Castle asked as they crossed into the cordoned off area in the middle of a half-built building.

“Slim to none I would say, Castle.” Lanie sounded cold enough to freeze nitrogen. Or whatever the saying was.

“Good morning, doctor!” he said in his most charming manner. “What makes you say that?”

“People don’t tie themselves up before accidentally jumping into a cement mixer.” Her sarcasm was thick enough to be visible in good light.

“Well… certain sex practices could result in that, I think…” He trailed off faced with enough raised eyebrows and glares to embarrass a Scooby.

“Vi?” He usually didn’t draw attention to his Slayer when she was checking out a body, quite the opposite actually, but this was an emergency.

The redhead was standing at the mixer and sniffing the air.

“What’s she doing?” Lanie asked.

“Checking for signs of demonic involvement,” Castle explained. Apparently, Kate hadn’t covered that between Absinthe and other liquor.

“With her nose?” Lanie’s voice was dripping with incredulity.

“She’s like a bloodhound,” Kate said, grinning slightly.

“I heard that!” Vi spat.

“Earls like an owl as well,” Kate added. Rick was so proud of her.

Vi huffed and stood up. “Smells like demon. Faint, but it’s there. Haven’t encountered that kind before, though.”

Lanie sighed. “Do I have to fake a report now? For the first time in my career?”

She sounded actually concerned about that, so Castle shook his head. “Not for that body, I think. But we might produce a few more, depending on the demons involved.”

Strangely, that didn’t seem to improve her mood. She probably was still suffering from her hangover, he thought.

*****

“The Vic’s been identified as Martin Kowalski, student at NYU, freshman, Biology major. Home address on record is the Lambda Kappa fraternity house,” Kate announced back in the precinct. “Probably a pledge. Esposito and Ryan are checking the address out. I sent them a message about the demon scent.”

Castle winced. Vi looked grim.

Kate had that look that meant Castle better explained, right now. He was quite familiar with it by now. So he did. “Demons and frat houses don’t mix well. Too many targets or corruptible people close together. The ideal hunting ground.”

Vi nodded. “Or they form a cult and sacrifice virgins to a patron demon.”

“He could have run into a demon while doing whatever the senior frat boys made him do,” Kate said. “It’s not unheard of for pledges to be ordered to organise alcohol for a party.” Glancing from Castle to Vi and back, she added: “This is not Sunnydale.”

“I don’t know of any demon who’d tie up a human and then stuff them into a cement mixer,“ Rick said. “They usually eat the body, cut off parts or sacrifice their victims in rituals.”

“Vi didn’t recognise the demon’s scent,” Kate countered, “So it might be a new kind of demon.”

“In that case, it’s best to expect the worst. Esposito and Ryan might need backup,” Castle said.

“They definitely need backup,” Vi stated, huffing. His Slayer carried grudges.

“I’ll call them,” Kate said, putting her phone on speaker.

Ryan answered after two rings. “Yes?”

“Ryan? Any trouble at the frat house?”

“No. They don’t know anything. Kowalski took a walk late night and didn’t return. His room is clear, the alibis check out. Dead end.” Ryan sounded as if he was talking about the weather.

“Thank you, Ryan. Are you on the way back to the precinct?” Kate asked with a frown on her face.

“Yes. We should arrive in a few minutes.” If they checked the whole house in the time they were away, they would have been faster than Buffy at a shoes sale, Rick thought. He wasn’t the only one.

“See you then.” Kate hung up and looked at Castle. “Mind control? Possession?”

He touched the box in his pocket so he could refrain from telling her that he had told her so. Instead he simply nodded. “Or something. We’ll have to intercept them.”

“We can get them in the elevator, and go down to the morgue.” Kate was already standing up. Castle nodded and followed her. Then he noticed that Vi was grinning widely.

She noticed his look. “I get to beat up Javier! In the line of duty! Isn’t it great? Teach him to dump me!”

“You were never together - you turned him down when he asked for a date. Repeatedly,” Rick pointed out.

She sniffed. “He dumped me because I’m stronger than him. I’ll show him stronger!”

Castle sighed. Slayers!

*****

“They’re in the garage, entering the hallway,” Vi whispered. She and Castle were hiding in out of the security camera’s view in said hallway. “I can hear them.” She sniffed the air. “And I can smell them - and the demon scent.”

“Alright… remember the plan,” Rick said.

“Knock them out and drag them to the morgue; I’m not Buffy,” Vi said in her best ‘bored teenager’ voice.

“Without getting seen,” Rick added.

“I’m never seen unless I want to be!”

Rick was about to mention a few occasions that had not held true when she suddenly tensed. A minute later, the two detectives walked around the corner. Vi was on them before they could react and knocked their heads together with an ugly crack, then grabbed the two unconscious men before they hit the ground. “Hah! Two with one blow!” She beamed at him.

Rick shook his head. “Five more, and we’ll call you Tailor.”

“Huh?”

“Later.” Obviously, German folktales were not part of the Slayer curriculum. He would have to mention that to Rupert. Though to be fair, Rick only knew the story thanks to his research for his books. “We need to get them to Lanie and Kate.”

*****

“So… how do we check for mind control? Or spells? Or possession? Do we drip holy water on them?” Lanie asked with a bit more sarcasm than the question warranted, in Rick’s opinion. “I’m a coroner, not a witch doctor.”

“Your impression of Bones needs some work,” Kate shot back. “And yes, we will use holy water,” she added, already pulling out two vials. Rick wasn’t surprised - she was one of his best fans, after all, and he had taken care to faithfully portray the various ways of dealing with demonic possession in his work.

“Holy water?” Lanie asked again.

“Blessed by a priest.” Rick nodded. A priest getting quite the donations for his church in exchange.

“If my Chemistry teacher knew I was party to this, he’d retroactively fail me,” Lanie muttered.

The water didn’t do anything to the two unconscious - and likely concussed - detectives.

“I think we can rule out possession, at least the most common forms,” Rick said. He hoped they didn’t have to get a witch to check for spells. “So… Vi?”

The Slayer was sniffing Ryan, then bent down. “The stench’s stronger here…” She flipped the detective over with a flick of her wrist. “There!”

“A bezoar hatchling!” Rick exclaimed. “I knew it!”

“You knew it? You didn’t say anything!” Vi complained.

“I meant I knew that we should have expected the worst,” Rick explained. Then he saw the thing move. “Don’t let it escape! And watch the other one!”

Two thrown knives later, they had a pair of demons to dissect.

Strangely, Lanie didn’t seem to be looking forward to that. Castle blamed her hangover - demons stank.

*****

“So, we have a fraternity house full of demon-controlled students,” Beckett summed up back in the precinct. “And they might have spread to other dorms already.”

Vi nodded. “Sorority girls are the ideal carrier - they will sleep with anyone who asks.”

Judging by Kate’s glare, she had been in a sorority as well. Rick was so not touching that.

“And thanks to our overzealous Slayer, Kevin and Javier have concussions and can’t help us deal with this,” Kate said. ‘Our Slayer’ - Rick liked that.

Vi sniffed. “They wouldn’t have been a big help anyway.”

“Three against a horde of frat boys?” Kate raised her eyebrows.

“Sounds like the title of an 80s porn movie,” Rick quipped.

“You would know that, would you?” Kate was now glaring at him, as if Vi’s actions were his fault.

“Anyway, we just need to kill the mother bezoar and her children will fall off, shrivel up, and die. The exact sequence of the process can vary,” Castle said, trying to make the others focus on the problem at hand instead of on his imaginary faults.

“And by we, you mean me,” Vi added, looking less eager to slay a demon than usual. “Buffy told me all about how messy they die. I’ll need new clothes after this! A whole new wardrobe!”

“You can wear old clothes for the mission,” Castle retorted.

“And be seen in rags? I need to blend in with students!” Vi exclaimed.

“You said that the only time you’re seen is if you want to be seen. Unless you want to be seen by demon-controlled fratboys…”

Vi huffed, and Castle chalked up another point to himself.

*****

“Are you certain that the bezoar is in the dorm’s basement?” Kate asked early in the morning as the three of them were sneaking up on the frat house in question.

“All of the accounts of battles with those demons agree that they are hidden below the ground,” Castle explained. “So, we sneak in through the old coaling chute, find the monster, Vi kills it with the rocket launcher, and we open a gas line for a bit, to explain everyone dropping unconscious.” And his Slayer could brag to the other Slayers that she got to use a rocket launcher. And would hopefully stop trying to get his permission to use one on Clark’s just so she could say she did.

“Easy,” Vi said, and Castle groaned - did they never learn?

*****

“See? That’s why you don’t tempt Murphy!” Rick yelled five minutes later, trying to hold the basement door closed against the onrushing horde of demon-controlled frat boys.

“I didn’t set them off!” Kate yelled back, dragging another keg of beer - the fraternity had stashed enough booze to make an Irish pub jealous - to reinforce the barricade they were building.

“I’ll find it soon enough,” Vi yelled from further down the basement, “the stench is growing stronger!”

“Hurry up!” Rick shouted when the door started to splinter under heavy blows. “They’ve got axes!” Axes they would use on him and Kate once they broke through. He should have brought his flame thrower - his shotgun might not be enough, should worse come to worst. He would hate himself for killing mind-controlled people, but he’d hate himself even more if Kate and himself died.

Kate hefted the keg up and dumped it on the others. The whole barricade was shaking now; the door had been broken down. He could see more axes and baseball bats. The worst, though, was the silence. For all their zeal in storming the basement and killing them, the frat boys were not saying anything - it was worse than a zombie attack.

“That was the last keg,” Kate said, panting.

He cursed and lifted his his gun. If he shot them in the legs… he shook his head. That wouldn’t stop them. “We have to hold the choke point here,” he said through clenched teeth. “If they break through we’ll be surrounded and killed.”

“They’re not aware of what they are doing,” Kate said, looking at him.

“I know.” They were pushing hard now, the barricade was shaking. The first keg tumbled off it, breaking as it hit the ground, spilling beer all over the floor. Not even that terrible waste broke the demonic hold over the frat boys, though.

The leader, a tall, buff blond, was crawling over the barricade now, axe in hand. Castle raised his shotgun.

“I’ve found it!” Vi yelled from behind them. “Take that!”

Then the basement behind them blew up, and Castle was thrown into the puddle of beer, with Kate falling on top of him.

“Yeehaw!” he heard his Slayer yell in triumph. “Roasted Bezoar!” A quick glance confirmed that the blond leader had fallen unconscious. Then smoke filled the basement.

He was lying in a puddle of beer, in a room full of smoke, with the woman he loved on top of him, surrounded by unconscious frat boys and the dying babies of a demon brood mother.

“Kate?”

“Yes, Rick?”

He pressed the box into what he identified by touch as her right hand.

“Will you marry me?”

*****

“I told you so!” Vi said an hour later, for the tenth time that night. “Didn’t I? The best moment is right after a battle, and with the exit blocked!” She was cackling with glee, too.

Castle didn’t care. Kate may have laughed almost hysterically for over a minute, then coughed for another minute to get all the smoke out of her lungs, and he had ruined a suit with beer and smoke, but she had said yes!

*****

 


	25. Third Time's a Charm Part 2

**New York, January 2010**

Kate Beckett woke up feeling… conflicted. Not about having accepted Rick’s proposal - she had known that it was coming for a while; his hints hadn’t been half as subtle as he had thought. She had just wanted to let him fidget a little, to see if he was really serious. Although given how he seemed to double down when faced with a challenge or obstacle, that might not have been a valid test. Not that she had really doubted him, not once she knew him. She looked to her side, but Rick had already woken up and was… yes, she could hear him singing in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. She smiled and closed her eyes again.

No, she did not regret saying yes. Not even when she thought about Rick’s family and friends, who couldn’t be called anything but ‘eccentric’, in Rick’s words. With the exception of his daughter, and possibly his mother. Alexis at least seemed to be the only fully responsible in the family, apart from her wish to become a Watcher.

Not that Kate could criticise that - she was pretty much an unofficial Watcher herself. An official one, she reminded herself - Rick had registered her with the Council, as he had told her in France. And while the Scoobies were crazy, they were good friends to have. The best, even, when you needed someone to cover your back - in a battle at least.

No, what made her second-guess her decision was the timing. ‘Heat Wave’ was about to be released. A new book, first in a series, with the leading character - and she was the leading character; everyone but Vi could see that clearly - styled after the author’s girlfriend, now fiancée? Shortly after a kidnapping in the family?

The tabloids would be in a feeding frenzy. And the ‘stripper name’ comments would be the least she had to look forward to. A cop, from a decent, but middle-class family, marrying a rich writer and socialite? She scoffed. They’d call her ‘gold digger’, or ‘whore’, depending on whether it was in an article, or in the comment sections on the web page. Or they’d assume she was just another notch on the playboy’s bedpost who got lucky.

She set her jaw. She could take it. She was a cop, not a whore or gold digger. She knew it, Rick knew it, her friends knew it, his friends knew it, his family knew it, and… her father knew it. But he didn’t know yet that she was engaged. She would have to tell Dad, before he found out through the news. Or, worse, by journalists accosting him for a statement.

She snorted. That wouldn’t happen - Castle wasn’t that famous. And no one but them, and Vi, knew about their engagement so far.

“DAD!”

A high-pitched scream interrupted her thoughts.

Alexis must have just been told.

*****

Her phone had a dozen messages on it when she checked it after getting up. All of them from Britain. So, the Scoobies already knew as well. Vi must have called them right when they got home. Well, they were discreet - more or less. And they were an ocean and five time zones away. But she should tell Dad, and Lanie and… Oh God - she had to tell the precinct. And that would get out - she’d known someone at work had been talking to a tabloid after that article on page six. And it wasn’t as if she wanted to hide her ring - that would hurt Rick. He was so happy, he had wanted to shout to the heavens, as he worded it. And he had tried - fortunately, they had been in the basement of the frat house still, and her ears had already been ringing from the rocket launcher Vi had fired earlier.

She slipped into the robe Rick had bought her a month ago. It was an expensive one - silk - if a tad short. But it made her look sexy as hell and she really liked how it felt on her skin. After a glance at the mirror, to check that she wasn’t showing any signs of the battle with the Bezoar, she made her way to the kitchen.

There she was greeted by all members of the Castle family currently in New York.

“Kate! You said yes!” Alexis seemed to jump on her seat with excitement.

“Yeah she did. And made me win the pool!” Vi grinned like a shark.

The redhead looked far too well for having spent most of the night dealing with demons, Kate noticed. As usual for Slayers. Wait… “Pool?”

Castle sighed. “Apparently, they had a betting pool running on when I would propose.”

Kate glared at the Slayer, who didn’t look ashamed in the least. Alexis, though, looked embarrassed. Wasn’t that like insider trading, those two betting on Castle’s engagement? Kate blinked - that was another sign of Castle’s influence; she wouldn’t have had such a thought before getting involved with him. “They didn’t bet on whether I would accept the proposal?” She looked at Castle, who was carrying two plates with pancakes - no, crêpes - to the table.

“Apparently, that was ‘a sucker’s bet’, as Buffy put it,” Castle said.

Kate didn’t know if she should feel flattered or insulted at that. Then Rick put down the plates and grabbed her around the hip for a kiss - with a dip. She managed not to yelp with surprise and ruin the effect. And somehow, the comments from Vi and Alexis didn’t register until they broke the kiss, sometime later.

No, Kate didn’t regret her decision, not at all. Not even when she had to rearrange her robe, which had slipped a little.

*****

Any thoughts Kate might have had about just telling Lanie, Esposito, Ryan and the Captain - he had to know, of course, even if Castle technically wasn’t one of his officers - evaporated when she saw Castle’s expression as they entered the elevator to the bullpen. He looked like a kid who had been told that, yes, Santa Claus had approved his whole wish list. It felt oddly satisfying to see that expression on the face of a man who could have just about everything, and to know that it was because of her. And not because of someone else. Like his agent, or an English upper class woman. Or a Slayer.

Like the one who was pulling a rather large package out of the Shelby’s trunk. Rick’s smile grew even bigger when he noticed her glance. “The precinct will finally get a real coffee maker! The best my money could buy!”

“One of those fake-Italian ones? With the overpriced coffee capsules? Which the precinct lacks the budget to cover?” Kate resisted the urge to shake her head when Rick winced in sudden understanding. “I’m sure you can return it.”

“Do you mean I carried that thing to the car, and then to the elevator, just to return it?” Vi complained.

“You don’t even feel the weight,” Rick said.

“It’s the principle of the thing!” Vi huffed and held the package in one hand while she gestured with the other, completely ruining her own point.

“Well… our coffee maker at home is not the newest…” Rick looked thoughtful.

“It wouldn’t fit into your kitchen, Rick - that’s double the width of your current one,” Kate pointed out.

“Well… the kitchen isn’t the newest either. And since we’re about to wed…” Rick trailed of when he found himself faced with Kate’s glare, and Vi’s snickering.

“Are you really contemplating to remodel your kitchen, rather than admit that you made a mistake?” Kate frowned at him; that was just like him.

“A new kitchen for the wedding? You know what kind of message that is sending?” Vi was still snickering.

Rick was pouting during the whole ride up to the precinct - but the coffee maker was back in the car’s trunk.

*****

“He did? And you said yes?”

Kate nodded.

“Girlfriend, that’s great news!” Lanie beamed at her and hugged her. Fortunately, she had been typing up a report and not cutting up a body, so she wasn’t wearing one of her aprons. Still, Kate was glad Lanie was over her grudge about not having been told about demons and magic.

“Show me the ring!”

Kate did, and Lanie made all the right appreciating noises a best friend was supposed to make. It felt oddly normal, these days.

“So… how did he propose? During a romantic dinner in a séparé, with soft music in the background and the stars shining through the glass ceiling?” Lanie looked at her expectantly.

Kate coughed. “Not exactly.”

“He didn’t ask in the middle of a family dinner, putting pressure on you in front of an audience, did he?”

“No, he asked me after we had just fought a bezoar and its mind-controlled horde.” Kate winced at her friend’s expression and decided not to mention any details.

She still didn’t regret her decision. Rick was worth those odd moments.

*****

**New York, January 2010**

“‘Stripper Cop Nabs Author’? ‘Undercover for Vice Sting’? I was never undercover, least of all as a stripper!”

Richard Castle, checking his schedule for readings and other promotion events following the official release of ‘Heat Wave’ on his computer, winced when he heard his girlfriend’s - his fiancée’s! - angry voice from the living room. He hadn’t expected that - not seriously. A little bit of teasing, maybe, from friends. Not definitely unfriendly slander from tabloids.

He heard her coming towards his office - Kate had not just mastered running and fighting in high heels better than any other non-Slayer he knew, but stomping as well. A moment later, she stormed inside.

“Rick! Have you read this?” She waved the tabloid around as if she was under attack by a swarm of bees.

Lying would be pointless, so he nodded. “I did, yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me? Never mind, what can we do about this?” She put both hands on his desh, flattening the tabloid, and leaned forward.

He winced again. “Not much, I’m sorry to say.” Very sorry.

“What? That’s slander!”

He took a deep breath and hoped for the best. “It’s not exactly slander. They just speculate about your career - but as long as they only claim you worked as an undercover cop, there’s not much we can do about it.”

“They called me a stripper!”

“Not exactly… they said you were allegedly an undercover cop investigating strip clubs. Allegedly. And a cop is an honourable profession.”

“Of course it is! But the way they insinuate that I seduced you while working undercover as a stripper…” She shook her head and he could tell that she was clenching her teeth. “That’s…”

“... utterly ridiculous, and will make a good story at our golden anniversary?” He smiled as sincerely as he managed.

“No,” she answered in a very flat voice. Well, he had tried.

He sighed. “I hate it too - but there’s not much we can do. Legally, they are in the clear.”

He hadn’t known Kate could growl like that. Outside the bedroom, at least. And with more menace than lust. He better had to do something about this rag - she was his wife to be, after all, as in ‘for richer, for poorer’. And there was the possibility that she she might, inexplicably, and without any reason, of course, blame him for her unfair association with stripping. He cleared his throat. “Well… we might take recourse to certain extra-legal means…”

“What?” She frowned at him.

“Nothing strictly illegal, of course. But, technically, this is an attack on your honour,” - and his, but he didn’t need to mention that - “and since the charter of the Watcher’s Council, even the latest version, is positively ancient, we have a certain leeway with what is considered self-defence.”

“What do you mean, Castle?” She was baring her teeth now.

“Err… Willow’s a great hacker?”

She blinked. And then she smiled, and Rick wondered what kind of evil he had just unleashed upon the world.

*****

“‘New York Daily Post under investigation for tax evasion, slander, blackmail and... bestiality?” Richard Castle looked up from the New York Times - which had printed a very favourable review of ‘Heat Wave’ - and at his family, and family to be, who had gathered for breakfast.

“Who would have thought that such despicable people were behind that slanderous rag?” Kate wasn’t even bothering to hide her satisfied smile.

And the sage nod and serious expression of Alexis clearly indicated that she had had a hand in that event as well.

“Isn’t that going a bit far?” Bestiality? Really?

“No.” Kate said. “We didn’t actually frame them - we just… speculated.”

“Alluded to. In places the FBI was observing. With online handles that might have been also used by certain people in the newspaper’s employ,” Alexis explained, with a wide grin. “Although Willow said that the Feds will find enough proof of actual crimes that the newspaper is finished anyway.”

Vi nodded enthusiastically. “That’ll teach them to speculate about Castle dropping me for Kate! As if he’d ever do that!”

“Because he never had you to drop,” Kate said, with a slightly thinner smile than before.

“Technicalities! It’s the thought that counts!” Vi stated, then refilled her plate for the third time.

Castle meanwhile was trying to decide if he should be proud or afraid of his family. Or both.

*****

“Rick? Do we have anything scheduled for tomorrow evening?”

When he heard Kate’s question from the living room, Rick checked his agenda, which was quite packed for the near future - it was really ironic that he had less time to relax after he had finished a book than when he was writing it, he thought. But tomorrow evening looked good. “No, it’s free - unless Gina’s asking for another dinner with obnoxious publishers. In that case we’re busy.”

“Thanks!” He heard her laugh, and could picture her in his mind, her expression, carefree… maybe she had something planned. A surprise, a candlelight dinner… or something else, with candles - Kate was quite a bit more adventurous than one would expect from a cop.

And there she was! Smiling, and standing in the doorway to his office.

He grinned. “I assume that tomorrow’s evening is now solidly booked.”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. My dad’s coming to dinner.”

His grin slipped.

“What?”

*****

“So… your father is coming for dinner, and Dad’s freaking out.”

Castle glared at his daughter. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that,” Kate said. “He’s been moaning about his upcoming doom for an hour.”

“I haven’t been moaning,” Rick corrected her. “I’m just - completely understandably - concerned about making a good impression on my future father-in-law. Whom I have never met before, I have to point out.” Castle would certainly not have a favourable opinion of any boy whom his daughter decided to marry and whom he had never met.

“Translation: He feels guilty about not having asked your dad for permission to marry you - despite that being a very sexist and archaic custom any intelligent woman will take offense to,” Alexis said. He could hear Willow’s influence in her words, and Mother’s in her loud, suffering sigh. “He probably thinks that because he would be going up the walls should I bring a fiancé home whom he had never met. Which I will not do, Dad, by the way.” His daughter knew him far too well, Rick thought, but he was happy that she respected his opinion in that matter at least. Then she went on. “I would marry him before bringing him home, so Dad can’t wreck the engagement.”

“I would never!” Rick protested. No one seemed to believe him, though. He huffed. “Let’s focus on the problem, please.”

“Castle! My father isn’t a ‘problem’!”

“I didn’t mean it that way!” Why was everyone thinking the worst of him today? “For the record: I didn’t say that I shared those sexist and archaic views. But, seeing as your father is not as young as I am, he might have a different opinion on this subject.” What father wouldn’t? Rick thought.

“Dad, do you really think Kate’s father would be that old-fashioned? He had no problem with her career choice, after all!” Alexis declared.

Kate, though, suddenly looked guilty.

He was so doomed.

*****

“So… Your dad wasn’t happy with you becoming a cop?” Castle asked an hour later, when Alexis had gone to tell Vi everything, after his slayer had returned from her evening patrol.

Kate, sitting on the couch and reading the advance copy of his book, glared at him, but she didn’t deny it. Instead she sighed. “He worries too much. Ever since my mother…” She trailed off.

He nodded. He completely understood a father worrying for his daughter.

“... which is why he is so happy about the engagement.”

“Wait, what?”

She sighed. “I haven’t told him about your real work. He thinks you’re simply a rich fantasy author.”

“Bestselling fantasy author,” he corrected her automatically. “But… why would he be so happy about that?” Apart from the rich part, of course, but Castle didn’t think Kate’s father would be that concerned about money. On the other hand, Rick didn’t know him at all, and Kate hadn’t talked about her father that much.

She sighed again. “He thinks that you’ll persuade me to quit my job.”

“But… that makes no sense!” He shook his head. “We met because of your work, and I even joined the department as a civilian consultant so I could work with you!” She stared at him, and he coughed before continuing. “Well, unofficial consultant, at least.”

“You convinced the Mayor that you needed me as your inspiration so you could check our cases for demonic influence.” And get her to date him.

“Yes. That’s like the FBI providing assistance to the department.” Her frown reminded him just how much the local cops liked the Feds meddling in their cases. “Anyway… so, your dad will try to convince me to convince you to stop being a cop?” That was a lot of convincing.

“Yes.”

“And he won’t like it when we tell him that I’m actually hunting demons.”

“No.”

Her father would kill him.

*****

**New York, January 2010**

Contrary to Richard Castle’s expectations (or fears), the dinner with Kate’s dad - his future father-in-law - started out very well. Or relatively well. Vi and Alexis were late - apparently, Alexis’s meeting at school had ran later than expected - but that might have been a blessing in disguise, allowing Castle to make a good impression before his family arrived to undermine him.

“Dad!”

“Mister Beckett!” Rick beamed at the older man and stepped aside to let him inside. Kate’s father looked slightly puzzled but followed him inside. Kate, though, glared at him behind her father’s back. Rick frowned at her - you didn’t invite anyone, not even your family, inside your home. Everyone knew that!

Jim Beckett was looking around their living room, apparently surprised by the amount of medieval weaponry on display.

“It’s great, right?” Rick said quickly. “All of the pieces are authentic!” He smiled and pointed at a random blade. “Like this sword here: It’s an estoc, 15th century. Most mistake it for a rapier, because it’s also optimised for thrusting, but there are a few differences, like the thickness of the blade, and the width, and of course the period it was used.”

“Kate told me you were a blade enthusiast.”

Was that a good thing? He glanced at Kate, but she was ignoring him now. “Oh, I’m at best an amateur. You should see Vi, she’s the real enthusiast. Girl loves her blades; she makes me buy her one or two per months.”

“Really? Aren’t antique swords really expensive?” He looked like Kate when she spotted some inconsistency in a suspect’s claim, Rick thought.

“Oh, yes. My bank account is weeping each time we go shopping.” He chuckled. Once again behind her father’s back, Kate was baring her teeth at him - was he doing something wrong? He was just being witty while being honest.

“Ah.” Jim Beckett nodded. “I’ve heard a lot of things about you from Katie.”

The non sequitur threw him - what had Kate told her father? And why hadn’t she told Rick a lot about her father? She had even blocked his attempt to have Willow investigate Jim Beckett’s background. “Really? Only good things, I hope.” He forced himself to laugh.

“Well… mostly.”

“Mostly? Only mostly?” Rick frowned at Kate, who was laughing - it sounded a bit forced as well, though.

“Oh, I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him if I didn’t think he’d make a great husband.” She waved at the couch. “Let’s sit down.”

“Let me give you the tour,” Rick said at the same time. He quickly added: “After we’ve taken an apéritif.” And Kate was frowning at him again! Oh, right - she mentioned her father had been an alcoholic! “I mean… orange juice?”

“Thank you, Mister Castle.”

And now Rick knew from whom Kate had inherited _that_ expression. He managed not to wince until he was on the way to the kitchen and their guest couldn’t see his expression.

“What are you doing?” Kate whispered - hissed - at him after she had joined him in the kitchen.

“I’m getting rid of the evidence,” he whispered back as he emptied the cocktails he had prepared into the sink.

“I mean talking about swords like other men talk about their Ferraris!”

Oh. Did he really sound like that? “I just wanted to break the ice, you know? What man doesn’t like to talk about swords?”

“My father doesn’t like weapons.” Oh. That man, apparently. But how could he have known that? With Kate being such an expert shot? “And I told you that,” she continued.

Oh, again. He winced. “Well, swords aren’t actually weapons. Very few people want them banned, after all.”

“Tell that to Vi!” She whispered through clenched teeth as he filled three glasses with orange juice.

“Are you crazy?” He blurted out before he noticed her grim and yet smug smile. “Point taken,” he replied in kind. It wasn’t one of his best saves, anyway.

As they returned to the living room, he saw that Jim Beckett was bending down from his seat - apparently he had dropped a peanut or other. Castle rushed forward. “Don’t bother, don’t bother! I’ll pick it up!”

He all but dropped the glasses on the low table, then knelt down to grab the spilled snacks - and checked if the pistol Vi had strapped beneath the seat ‘for emergencies’ was still in place.

Kate, quick on the uptake, was distracting her father. “Oh, don’t mind him - he’s always like this when we have guests.”

“I wouldn’t have expected that based on what you told me about his office.”

“Oh, I’m different when I’m working - you might say my true nature comes to the fore. Spontaneous, creative, unbeholden to rigid rules.” Castle smiled widely as he sat down next to Kate on the couch. “Cheers!” he added, raising his glass.

“So, you’re an author.”

“Bestselling author,” Castle responded automatically, then had to fight not to wince when Kate stepped on his foot. “Kate’s my biggest fan. The biggest fan of my books, I mean.” That sounded less like a good thing than it had in his head.

“Yes. You’ve met the first time when she was twelve. I remember her telling me everything about it for hours afterwards,” Mister Beckett said. Castle nodded - he counted that as a good thing, mostly. Even if it emphasised their tiny age difference. “Your first wife taught her how to shoot a crossbow, I think.”

Rick grinned. “Oh, I wasn’t like that. It was more like letting her shoot a few bolts. To effectively use a crossbow in combat, you have to train a long time.” If you were hunting vampires, at least - the council had been quite clear on that.

“You seem to have a lot of experience with weapons.”

“Oh, yes. I pride myself on the authenticity and realism of my fight scenes.” He smiled, widely - most critics agreed that this was one of his strengths.

“In a fantasy story.”

“Dad!”

“I’m just saying… fighting vampires and realism don’t go that well together.” Castle didn’t like the man’s patronising smile.

He didn’t let that show, though, and shrugged. “Well, it’s hypothetical realism. If vampires existed, my fight scenes would be the epitome of realism.” Take that, sceptic!

“Vampires and superpowered women. And demons.”

Castle didn’t make the quip that women were the most terrifying of the three. “I’d like to think that Kate is the perfect example of a real superwoman.” He turned his head to look at Kate and put his hand on hers. “How she can run and fight high heels is a mystery.”

He frowned when no one laughed at his joke. Oh, right - Kate said that her fighting was a sore spot. _The_ sore spot. But wasn’t he supposed to support her choices, instead of catering to her parents, or father in this case?

Fortunately the door opened and a diversion walked in. Two, actually - Vi and Alexis. “Mister Beckett,” Castle said, standing up - Kate’s father had still not told Rick to call him ‘Jim’ - “here are my daughter Alexis and Vi.”

“Hello Mister Beckett,” Alexis chirped. “Hi, Kate! Sorry that we’re late, Dad - the school newspaper is in trouble, and we talked for hours about possible solutions.”

“Do they need money?” Rick refrained from pulling out his checkbook. “Did the principal threaten to cut the paper’s funding after they revealed his sordid affair with his secretary?”

“Dad! There was no revelation about an affair!” Alexis pouted at him.

“Oh… you bowed to pressure, and buried the story, and now you’re wracked with guilt, and need a way to undo it?” He could see it - the anguish, put between integrity and responsibility. Wait - Alexis wasn’t part of the school newspaper team.

“Dad! It’s nothing like that! But the core of the staff are graduating, and they are looking for competent successors. There are a number of volunteers, but they are too biased.”

“I don’t know how I can help you with that, honey,” Rick said. “I heard the schools in New York frown on press-ganging students.” Though he was certain that a few principals had thought about it when competing for the best sports talents.

“I know, Dad. I didn’t expect you any help from you. I was simply explaining why we were late.” Alexis turned to their guest and her most polite smile appeared. “Please excuse him - he usually assumes that everything is about him.”

Jim Beckett actually laughed at that.

Rick wasn’t certain if he should resent him for that, or his - far too responsible and serious - daughter for having more success at breaking the ice.

Vi, who had used the brief distraction to empty the bowls with peanuts, picked this moment to demonstrate her opinion that everything should be about her. “Hi, Mister Beckett!” she said, sitting down on her usual place on the armrest of the couch despite Castle’s pointed look at the free seat. “I’m Vi. I’ve been keeping Rick alive for eight years now. You can trust your daughter to me!”

As Kate glared at his Slayer and her father seemed torn between confusion and amusement, Rick realised that Vi had utterly misunderstood their concerns about Jim Beckett’s fear for his daughter.

Slayers!

*****

**New York, January 2010**

“I can’t help but wonder why an author needs a bodyguard, Mister Castle.”

“Call me Rick,” Richard Castle said. “Would you like more lasagna?” Everyone liked his lasagna, and Jim Beckett was no exception. Rick was the best cook in the family, after all. Not that there was much competition. Mother could make sandwiches and a few desserts, Vi could grill meat - barely - and Alexis… well, he hoped that his little daughter would find a boy who could cook.

“Thank you… Rick. It’s delicious.”

“I know, right?” Rick beamed at Jim - had he told Rick to call him ‘Jim’ yet? Or was that implied? “Everyone loves it.”

“Is that why you have made enough to feed a company?” Jim pointed at the second casserole, which would be generous for double their number - if none of them were a Slayer.

“No, that’s just for Vi,” Kate said, smiling widely. “She likes to get seconds and thirds. Casseroles.”

Vi growled - she couldn’t do much else right now, since Kate had timed her remark with Castle’s Slayer stuffing her mouth - and Rick intervened with the best smile he could muster: “She’s got a healthy appetite.”

“Ah.” Jim probably didn’t think that eating so much was healthy. Or he suspected that the redhead was bulimic. “But as I was saying: Why do you need a bodyguard? You haven’t hired her just so you could follow Kate at work. She’s been with you for years.”

“Did you follow me in the yellow press?” Rick asked. That sounded kind of creepy.

“No, I asked Kate after the first article mentioning a love triangle involving you three was shown to me by my noisy neighbour.”

“Vi never was my girlfriend!” Rick said.

“You could show a bit more regret and longing there, Rick!” Vi cut in, apparently having finished stuffing her mouth for the moment - literally, since she was refilling her plate.

“More like relief,” Kate added with a glare. Which was so not helping, judging by Jim’s - should Castle think of him as Jim? - expression.

“I trust that my daughter wouldn’t have agreed to marry a man who was cheating on her with his bodyguard,” Jim said. “But you’re evading the question, Rick.”

Kate’s father would make a good prosecutor, Rick thought. “Well, as you have certainly heard, I’m rich and famous. Which means that I and my family need more protection than others.”

“Protection that failed last month.”

“I wasn’t there, or I would’ve killed every last kidnapper!” Vi said before Castle could step on her foot.

He sighed. “Let me guess: You are wondering if your daughter will be safe with me.”

“Actually, I’m wondering if you wouldn’t hire Katie as a second bodyguard.”

“What?” Rick stared at him.

“Dad!” Kate glared at Jim.

“He doesn’t need a second bodyguard!” Vi stated after swallowing another mouthful of pasta.

“Really? You still think I should stop being a cop! And now you’re trying to leverage a kidnapping to guilt me into quitting?”

“No, I’m not.”

Rick didn’t believe him. And neither did Kate - she huffed and shook her head.

“I worry about you, Katie.”

“You shouldn’t. She’s a decent shot. Not as good as me, of course, but then, no one is!” Vi said, not helping. “I don’t have to protect her that much in a fight!”

“You sound like she has been in a fight where you had to protect her,” Jim said.

“Ah…” Vi blinked, then smiled weakly and turned to Rick with the usual expression on her face that she had after she realised that she had made a blunder.

“No,” Kate said. “She didn’t have to save me.”

Vi bit her tongue. Literally - Rick could tell.

Jim sighed while he smiled rather sadly at Kate. “Katie, you’re still doing the ‘I’m not lying, but I’m not telling the whole truth either’ bit. I can tell.”

Well, it looked as if the jig was up. Rick leaned forward. “Jim, you don’t have a heart condition, do you?”

“Now I’m even more worried about Katie.”

“Is that a yes or no?” Rick asked again. Causing his future father-in-law to have a heart attack would not be a good thing for his upcoming marriage.

“I hope you’re just trying to tell me that you’re pregnant.”

“Not exactly.” Rick decided to take that as meaning Jim hadn’t a heart condition. “But… you know, Vi is not really my bodyguard.”

“That should be ‘not just his bodyguard’,” Vi butted in.

“Is she your daughter?”

“No. Though she certainly feels like one at times.”

“Rick!”

“Dad!”

He cleared his throat, ignoring the outraged expressions of Alexis and Vi. “Now, since we have finished dinner - but for Vi, who already knows this - let me tell you a story.” First his father, now Kate’s father - he was telling this story far more than usual these days, Rick thought.

“The world is older than you know…”

*****

“That’s a recap of your ‘Vampire Hunter’ history, just with a few names changed, Rick. Not enough to avoid a copyright suit.”

“I did change the story more than that for my books,” Rick said. The Council couldn’t sue him, could they?

“Really?” Jim sounded like he doubted that.

“Yes. Did you read them?”

“A few. My first was read to me by Katie when she was little.”

“Oh!” Rick grinned. He could imagine the scene, little Katie forcing her parents to listen to her favourite book… he was getting off-topic in his head, he reminded himself. Even if he really wanted to ask how Jim liked them. “I hope you’ll like my new book, which will feature a heroine modeled after Kate.”

“Ah, yes, ‘Nikki Heat’.”

Jim’s tone almost made Rick wince. “You’ve read the article then.” No need to say which one.

“Yes.”

Kate cleared her throat.

“Anyway, we’re getting off-topic.” Rick smiled. “Now, I’m not afraid of a copyright suit because what I told you wasn’t a story invented by another author, but a history.”

“Demons and history usually don’t go together, Mister Castle.”

He was back to ‘Mr Castle’ now? “That’s what you believe. But I can prove it to you. Vi here is a Slayer.”

“Superpowered hot chick!” Vi elaborated enthusiastically but needlessly.

“Really.” Jim’s tone was dryer than a martini done wrong.

“Normally, we do this with the couch,” Rick said. Before he could continue, Vi had literally leaped out of her chair, over Jim’s head with a yard to spare, and landed at the couch. A second later, she was lifting it above her head. One-handed. “Like this.”

Jim was gaping. His mouth was moving, but he was not saying anything.

A much more satisfying reaction than the one of Rick’s father, all things told.

*****

“Demons exist… and you hunt them.”

“Yes.” Rick nodded. “Mostly vampires, but we - that is Vi and I - fought pretty much every type of demon we know.”

“And the First Evil!” Vi added. “In hell itself! Well, I did - Rick just looked down into the mouth of hell.”

“You hunt demons, and you dragged Katie into this.”

Now that didn’t sound like a correct summary of the events that had led to this. “I don’t think anyone can drag Kate into anything,” Rick said, maybe a little sharper than he should have.

“It’s more like she barged in and didn’t leave until we took her hunting,” Vi added her own biased account.

“Demons that hunt humans for food, are impervious to bullets, and many times stronger than the strongest human. Monsters straight out of a nightmare.”

Jim had read more than a few of his books, Rick thought.

“Hey! Slayers are human! Just better!” Vi protested.

Jim seemed to be ignoring them. “Katie! This far more dangerous than being a cop! I read enough of those books to know that those women usually die. Violently. And their human helpers don’t fare any better.”

“It’s far more important than the work we do as cops as well, Dad. Sometimes the entire world is at stake.”

“Or a city. Like New York. We call that an apocalypse. But they are rare - we’ve got seldom more than one per year.” Rick thought it best to get everything out in one go. Like ripping off a bandaid.

Jim didn’t seem to have listened. “But she could leave the hunting to the ‘Slayers’, couldn’t she? She is not as essential as they are.”

Kate was grinding her teeth, Rick saw. He quickly said: “Sometimes, it takes a normal human to save the day - or the world. Not that Kate is normal, mind you. She’s extraordinary.”

That earned him a smile from her, and a scowl from her father.

“I came here to convince you to keep my daughter safe - or at least safer than she is as a cop. And now I hear that she is, in fact, in much greater danger than before.” Jim sounded rather bitter as he shook his head.

“Dad…” Kate reached out and touched his hand. He didn’t react, though.

“Jim, we’ve been doing this for a while now - twenty years in my case, actually.” Not counting his break until Sunnydale. “Almost ten for Vi, even if she doesn’t act like it most of the time.”

“Hey!”

“And Kate’s been with us for six months now. We know what we are doing. Hell, she probably was in more danger when we stormed that manor full of Russian gangsters in France - demons generally don’t use guns.”

“You what?”

Oh, he hadn’t mentioned that before, had he? “I mean, she wasn’t in any real danger back then, we had the most powerful witch on the planet with us, and the most experienced Slayers.”

Strangely, that didn’t seem to reassure Jim Beckett. And everyone was glaring at Rick, again.

*****

**New York, February 2010**

“My dad’s speaking to us again. Provisionally.”

In front of his bedroom’s mirror, Castle stopped tying his tie when he heard Kate’s voice from the living room. “Oh? It’s just been… a week?” He checked the calendar. “Yes, eight days.” So the evening hadn’t been a total disaster, Castle thought. “What brought this on?”

“The wedding invitations, I think,” Kate said. Or something like it - Castle wasn’t really listening when he saw her standing there, in that oh so sexy cocktail dress that was worth every Euro he had paid for it in Paris. It hugged her body in that uniquely French way, classy and yet more exciting than than lingerie. Which, he realised, she couldn’t be wearing with how the dress was cut.

“Castle?”

“What?” He blinked.

“I asked if you were listening.”

“You mentioned wedding invitations before I was struck dumb by your appearance,” he admitted with his best roguish grin.

That made her blush, a little. “Dad said he still hates that we’re hunting demons, but he won’t create a scandal by not attending the wedding.”

“So, will he give you away at the altar?” Rick asked, tearing his gaze away from her legs.

“If he behaves.” Kate shook her head. “I’m still angry at him for trying to tell me how I have to live my life.”

“Oh, all parents do that. With the exception of my dad,” Rick said. “But I’m certain that if he had been involved in my life, he’d have tried to run it too.” Or ruin it.

“I suddenly feel a deep connection to Alexis.”

Rick frowned. “I’ll have you know that I have never questioned Alexis’s position as the mature and responsible member of the family.”

“And yet you try to run her life for her as well.” Kate gave him a look, not quite a glare.

He felt defensive anyway. “It’s not as if she actually listens to me. She does what she thinks is best.” Like joining the Watchers Council.

“So do I.”

“Did you just compare me to your father?” That was wrong on so many levels. “And yourself to Alexis?” That was even worse.

Judging by her grimace, she shared his thoughts.

He cleared his throat. “So… are you ready for the launch party of ‘Heat Wave’?”

“Yes. But if anyone calls me ‘Nikki Heat’…”

“You’ll smile and bear it?”

“No promises, Castle.”

“As long as you don’t shoot or arrest them…”

“I said ‘no promises’.”

He hoped that she was joking.

*****

Vi, of course, was hyped for the party. “I can cosplay as myself!” she declared, grinning widely, when she joined Rick and Kate in his living room.

“Vivian shares certain character with you, but she isn’t you,” Rick corrected her. “And I think I mentioned that her tops generally cover a bit more than what you’re wearing.” It looked more like a bikini than a top, actually.

“That’s what the jacket is for,” his slayer retorted with a shameless smile.

“I thought that’s to cover up your weapons,” Kate cut in.

“Well, yes. And that doesn’t leave much room for anything else. Wouldn’t want to cause my jacket to rip,” Vi said, pushing her chest out.

“I might be saddled with a stripper name, but you choose a stripper outfit.” The claws were coming out now, Rick thought.

“Oh, no. This is a Slayer outfit.” Vi bared her teeth. “Just ask Faith.”

Who would probably say it was both, Rick thought, just to annoy everyone. He decided to step in before things got out of hand - the last thing he wanted was to have the press focus on a brawl between his bodyguard and his fiancée instead of his new book. Although a catfight between Nikki Heat and Vivian… he would have to fit that into the outline of his next book. He cleared his throat. “Let’s go - we don’t want to be late.” Alexis and his mother were already there, he knew. Alexis to ensure that everything was ready - she still remembered that one launch party where catering had made a mistake - and Mom to boss the staff around to get her the best wine.

“That’s not what you said last time,” Vi said.

“I simply wanted to avoid breaking too many traffic laws. Rupert gets testy when the Council has to clear up traffic tickets.”

“They do that?” Kate asked.

“Well… it avoids certain drivers losing their license for excessive speeding, which in turn avoids more serious trouble with the law when they still drive to save humanity from demons,” Rick explained.

“Which could be avoided if Vi learned to drive without breaking the law.”

Vi grinned. “I can drive like every normal slowpoke. I just prefer not to.”

“That sounds like what a habitual speeder would say.”

Rick coughed. “We really should go now.”

“Right - oh, I almost forgot!” Vi pulled out a small envelope from her jacket. “I had those made to avoid any embarrassing misunderstandings.” With a wide grin she handed him and Kate…

“Badges?” He stared at his badge. “‘Hi, I’m the author!`? Really?” People who came to his launch parties knew him!

“I didn’t want to let you feel left out,” Vis said, adding her own, which read ‘Hi, I’m Vivian!’, to her top. Castle was impressed that this didn’t weaken the straining fabric enough to open a tear.

“‘Hi, I’m Nikki Heat?’” Kate wasn’t amused. Not at all.

Castle grabbed her badge and dropped it into into his pocket. It would have clashed with her dress anyway. “You know, if you continue like this, I’ll have Vivian and Nikki become a couple in the next book.”

Both women stared at him with expressions of horror.

*****

“Could you sign my top?”

At his last launching party, Castle had loved being asked to do that. But with Kate on his arm, it felt awkward. And he couldn’t ask the girl to hand the top over so he could sign it without touching her. Then he realised that the girl wasn’t looking at him. “Kate, she means you,” he said, not bothering to hide his grin.

“What?”

The girl pulled on her top - which rivaled Vi’s in skimpiness. “Here, please!” Kate was hesitating when the girl added: “My friend’s getting Vivian’s signature, but I like Nikki Heat better. She feels more real.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Kate said, suddenly all smiles, and signed the top with a flourish.

“You know, Vi heard that,” Rick whispered.

“Yes, I know.” Kate’s smile didn’t falter. “Aren’t fans great?”

“Usually. But some of the hardcore fans on the forums are…” He shrugged. Words failed him, and he was a bestselling author.

“I know, Rick - remember when we went over them hunting a killer?”

“That’s how we met,” he said. “Would you have imagined, back then, that we’d be engaged at the next party?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to deny it that strongly, you know.” His ego could take it, of course. But still!

“I’m just being honest. You didn’t make the best impression on me, back then. All arrogant, rich, entitled.” She shook her head.

“Never judge a book by its cover.” Even though his ruggedly handsome face and well-toned body were  good cover, if he did say so himself.

“Oh, I know.” She nodded at the tower of books in the centre of the room. “My advance copy didn’t have a cover.”

“Well… it wasn’t ready yet.”

“Or someone who knew how I would react to two nude women on the cover removed it.”

“They’re not exactly nude!” he protested. And they were just silhouettes anyway. Like in James Bond openings.

“Stripper name, nude silhouette - what’s next, a stripper pole? Mudwrestling?”

Rick buried the idea of a catfight in the next book.

“Although I’m wondering why you didn’t insert yourself in the book.” She grabbed a fresh glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

“Are you kidding? A self-insert? My family and the Council would never let me forget it!” He grabbed a glass for himself.

“Well, the loremaster certainly isn’t modelled after you, but the private detective… there’s a certain resemblance.” She grinned.

“What? He doesn’t look like me at all. And he’s younger than her!”

“But how he acts in the bed scene...” Her grin fit the dress now. All too well.

As Kate finished her glass and then went over to pose with Vi, Castle really hoped that his Slayer hadn’t heard that remark.

*****

**New York, February 2010**

“Well, at least the reviews are very good.” Richard Castle folded the New York Times and put it down on the breakfast table.

“Other than The Times,” Alexis pointed out. She meant the English newspaper, of course.

“They liked my books before the Council realised that I was their author. I’m certain that Travers and his ilk exerted undue influence on the critic.” Any fool could see that the timing of the sudden change was no coincidence.

“And why didn’t they change their view of your work after the old Council was replaced?” Alexis had a far too smug expression on her face, in his opinion.

“Inertia. You know how stuffy Brits are. Changing their opinion once was hard enough and probably required blackmail. Changing it twice? No chance, old chap!” Rick shook his head.

“I’m British too, Dad,” Alexis said, using her best English upper class accent. Mary had a lot to answer for!

“Only half, dear, and that half doesn’t count.” They were divorced, after all.

“I was born and raised in Merry Old England. The mother country. I have a British passport, too. And so do you, dear fellow.”

He gaped at her. “That’s enough of that crazy talk! Besides, you shouldn’t be so happy about that critic maligning my work - my books pay for our home, after all!”

“Aw, Dad!” Alexis stood up and hugged him. “I’m just teasing you a little. I’m very proud of your success.”

“Why do you sound as if you were the parent and I were the child?”

“Because one of us has to be the mature and responsible one,” his daughter retorted and grabbed the Times for herself. The New York one.

“That wasn’t very mature,” he grumbled. “Besides, once Kate is my wife, she can take over that position.”

“No, she can’t. Marrying you proves she is not mature enough.”

“Hey! Kate is very mature - in all the right places!” Which, he realised, was a very immature statement. And an insensitive one, too, judging by the face his his adolescent and not yet so mature in all the right - or wrong - places daughter made. On the other hand, she would be working with Slayers, who were, as a rule, all ‘superpowered hot chicks’, to quote Faith. Her ego would need to get used to that.

Especially if it meant winning an argument with his daughter. He smiled and opened the next newspaper. Maybe he should cut the reviews out? No, that was so… needy. He hadn’t done that since… a few years ago.

He could save the electronic articles on his computer, instead.

“Where is Kate, by the way?” Alexis asked.

“Ah… you were already gone home, right, you wouldn’t know,” Rick said.

“What happened? Dad!”

Whoa… Alexis had the same intense stare as her mother. He leaned back a bit. “Well… there was a discussion - or an argument - about who was the main character of the book. Nikki or Vivian.”

“What? You wrote the book from her perspective. The title includes her name.” Alexis shook her head.

“Well, I know that, you know that, everyone knows that. But you know how some fans aren’t exactly sane. And you know Vi.”

“What did she do?”

“Challenged Kate to a drinking contest.”

“And Kate accepted?” Alexis sounded very doubtful.

“Well… remember when we flew back to Paris to go shopping with the Scoobies?”

“No, I don’t, since, you know, I stayed with Mum,” Alexis said.

“Well… Kate and Buffy talked a lot with each other. Swapped stories, and all.”

“Dad! Get to the point. You don’t have to meet a minimum amount of words here.”

“Hey!” He frowned. He didn’t write like that. “Anyway, to make a long story short, Kate accepted the challenge - and she had demon beer ready.”

“Oh… but… Oh my god!” Alexis looked horrified rather than amused.

“No, no! It wasn’t like it was - supposedly - with Buffy. That beer just affected Slayers like normal beer affects humans.”

“So... ?”

“Vi went down, hard,” Castle said, sighing. His Slayer had walked right into that.

Alexis winced. “But… where’s Kate then?”

“Well, Kate had forgotten that the beer affected normal humans normally as well,” Rick explained.

“Hangover?”

“Demonic hangover!” He nodded sagely, but she didn’t laugh. Tough crowd.

*****

 


	26. Third Time's a Charm Part 3

**New York, March 2010**

“You know, I was married twice, and I don’t remember that many planning sessions,” Richard Castle said, pushing another catalogue with flower arrangements - flower arrangements! - away.

“That’s because Mum’s parents organised everything for your first wedding, since they didn’t trust you or Gran,” Alexis said, “and Gina simply wanted to marry you before you came to your senses.”

Rick winced at that reminder. “I see. But wouldn’t that make me singularly unqualified to decide anything about my wedding, due to my lack of experience?”

“Well, it’s not as if we’re really listening to you, dear,” his mother said with her most patronising smile. “But you can make a good tie breaker.”

“I am glad to be so appreciated. I feel married already.”

“Really, Rick?”

Now Kate was glaring at him. Apparently, wedding planning was a serious business, and you couldn’t make jokes during or about it. Not even gallows humour.

“Shouldn’t dear Dad be here a well? I think the males of the family are rather underrepresented.” He was outnumbered four to one, after all.

“You represent them,” Kate said rather dryly. Damn. “But we have been talking to him. He’s coordinating security with Xander and Willow.”

“Does that mean that we’ll be exchanging our vows in a bunker?” Rick asked. He wasn’t entirely kidding.

“No, no,” his mother assured him. “We nixed that idea.”

He hoped that she was kidding.

Rick leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Is it too late to elope?”

“Yes. Buffy already bought her bridesmaid outfit.”

“She’s going to be a bridesmaid?” Rick asked.

“Are you going to tell her that she won’t?” Vi cut in.

“Buffy asked, and I was happy to agree,” Kate explained, with a glance at Vi.

“Ah.” They were closer than Rick had assumed. Well, better Buffy than Faith. Or Willow… oh. “Ah… we do have a priest, right? Not a wiccan?”

“Willow insists on blessing the union. For good luck,” Alexis said, without looking up from her catalogue of… seats?

“Ah.” For a man who had been married twice already, this was certainly a novel experience, Rick thought. “Is there any reason why we can’t… outsource this planning? There are professional wedding planners, you know. I think I even know one.” Four pairs of eyes stared at him as if he had said the dumbest thing ever. “Just… throwing out the thought , you know.”

“Out in the trash,” Vi said. “A wedding planner wouldn’t know the first thing about the demonic side of the wedding.”

“Demonic side?” Just who was going to attend his wedding?

“Security against demons,” his slayer clarified. “Although we’ll need special accommodations for Spike as well.”

Rick would have said that the Vampire didn’t need any special treatment, and would better not attend at all, but the smile on his daughter’s face made him swallow that remark. He could learn, after all.

“And we need to ensure that there’s no silverware that could hurt Oz,” Alexis added.

“A vampire and a werewolf attend a wedding… is it just me, or does this sound like a joke?” Rick asked, rhetorically of course.

“Cheer up, Rick - imagine my father meeting them,” Kate pointed out.

“Oh!” Maybe he would get to enjoy his wedding, after all.

*****

**New York, April 2010**

“There are so many British guests, I wonder why no one has yet suggested that we hold the wedding in the United Kingdom.” Richard Castle commented - not complained - when he went over the guest list, which apparently had updated in his absence, before setting it down on the couch table.

“Well, it was considered, actually.”

“What?” He stared at his daughter, who was fiddling with the TV remote. “I was kidding!”

“Well, security would have been much easier if we held the wedding in Britain.” Alexis glanced at him and smiled weakly.

“I’m glad that common sense has prevailed. To marry in Britain… people would think I’m either mad, or pretentious!” Rick shook his head.

“Well… I think that it was mostly the opportunity of another trip to New York on the Council’s expense that doomed the proposal.” Alexis looked rather embarrassed. As she should be, Rick thought. Better the council than him, though. -Buffy probably had her own entry in Gucci’s annual report.

“You know, I’m actually glad I spent a few weeks on tour, promoting my book. I got to miss all of that.” He shook his head. “Although the demon hideouts Vi and I ferreted out while travelling would have been a great opportunity to relieve some of the stress this whole wedding planning is causing me.”

“Technically, you’re not planning much,” Alexis pointed out.

“Technically, I am not allowed to plan much, or anything at all” he shot back. “Every decision is being taken for me.” He blinked. “Come to think of it - it’s as if I’m already married!”

“Dad! If we came to you with every decision, you’d be complaining about no one being able to think for themselves.” Alexis was frowning at him. “And some of your ideas were, frankly, ill-thought-out.”

He frowned. “‘Ill-thought-out’? Did you talk too much with Mary again?”

“Dad!”

He raised his hands. “Sorry!” He wasn’t going to be the father trying to poison his daughter’s mind against his ex-wife. Mary could do that all by herself. Or should, at least! Oh. He checked the list again. “Mary’s coming too?” He didn’t yell; a testament of his iron self-control.

“Of course.” Alexis looked at him as if that was self-evident. “Mum and Kate get along well.”

“And there are some divorced dads who complain about their new girlfriend not liking their ex-wife…” He sighed.

“Dad!” Alexis glared at him.

“Sorry, sorry! It’s just - if your ex-wife is understanding, and all, then that’s…” Worrisome. An ill omen. Time to look for the dagger aimed at your back. “…weird.”

“Well, I like that Mum and Kate get along well.” Alexis sniffed. “It’ll make family gatherings much more agreeable!”

“You don’t want me to reconsider my decision, do you?” He mock-glared at his daughter.

“No, Dad. If that was the case I’d talk about inviting Gina.”

He shuddered. “The anti-demon wards should keep her out.”

“Dad!”

“Sorry! No joking about my second wife’s inexplicably present soul, I know.”

“Not that! We can’t have anti-demon wards! Spike’s attending, remember?” His daughter was glaring at him again.

“I had successfully suppressed that.” He sighed. More seriously, he asked: “But, I just realised - I didn’t ask you if you were OK with me marrying Kate.”

“I told you you could date her. That implies that marriage is on the table as well,” Alexis stated.

“You could have changed your opinion, after getting to know her better.” Unlikely, since Kate was a great woman, but… he had to ask.

“If I had changed my opinion, I’d have let you know. And her. Just like with Gina.”

He winced. “I had successfully repressed that as well.” That hadn’t been a fun time. At all.

Alexis proud smile was more than a bit evil, in his opinion.

*****

“It’s right down here, just follow me!” Richard Castle entered the bullpen of the 12th Precinct and went straight to the break room, waving at the four burly men carrying heavy boxes to follow him.”

“Castle?”

He turned around. Kate was standing there, in her sharp suit. She was smiling, tough looking a bit confused - but she was calling him ‘Castle’ and not ‘Rick’. “Ah, I’m back from my tour!”

“I can see that. I can also see four delivery men with you.” Her smile grew a bit thinner.

“Ah, them, yes.” He smiled widely. “I’ve found the solution to the coffee problem!” He gestured at the break room. “Just go on and install it, I’ll be right with you!”

“Castle!”

He turned back to her. “I decided to buy an old fashioned coffee maker - but a high-end one!” Meant for a café, actually. “And it comes with a two year’s supply of coffee!” He beamed at her.

“You decided?” There went the eyebrows.

“Well… the captain gave tacit approval when I mentioned my plans to replace the coffee maker.” He cleared his throat.

“When was that?” she snapped.

“Last year?”

“Castle! You can’t just barge in here and replace our coffee maker!”

“I just did,” he pointed out. “And trust me, no one will complain once they have had a taste of this great coffee!” After a year, he knew the staff well enough.

And so did Kate, judging by her sigh. In a lower voice, she asked: “Is this your way to protest your lack of input in the wedding planning?”

“No!” he said firmly and convincingly. “I’ve been planning to replace this crime against nature for months! It has soiled my breaks for the last time!”

She didn’t look too convinced, though, but at least she laughed at his comment. “Seriously, how are you holding up? I have to confess that your family’s zeal is impressive.” Meaning, it would scare lesser people than Kate.

He sighed. “They mean well. All of them. I think.” He wasn’t quite certain about Spike’s offer to organise the band. It had been shot down, anyway - Oz would cover that. And probably perform. He smiled at her. “As long as we get married, you and me, I don’t care about the details.”

It was sappy, but true. And he was certain that if they weren’t standing in the middle of the bullpen, she would have kissed him right then and there.

*****

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

Richard Castle looked up from where he was writing the last part of his report of his ‘tour’ for the Council. His mother was standing in the doorway of his office, looking at him with an earnest expression.

“If that question is related to my earlier outburst, rest assured that was simply my frustration about the deadlock regarding the flower arrangements being voiced a bit too strongly.” Who would think of combining orange and white like that? The gate would have been mistaken for a traffic signal!

She sighed. “Kiddo, I know you. I’m your mother, even if in the past, I might not have always acted like it. If you’re talking like Rupert, you’re not happy. Or you’re drunk, which you’re not. I hope so, at least.”

He considered denying it, but his mother was more perceptive than she usually acted. So he sighed. “I’m just…” Anxious? Afraid? “...slightly worried how much this wedding seems to resemble my first.” Where he hadn’t had much to say either, apart from ‘I do.’ And he wasn’t sure if they would have listened to him if he had said ‘no’.

“What you’re actually worried about is whether this marriage might fail, like your first marriage did.” His mother shook her head. “You shouldn’t be, by the way.”

“And why do you think that?” That was good to hear, but he hoped she had based her statement on more than ‘a woman’s intuition’.”

“Remember what I told you about Mary? That she was an ambitious woman who ultimately couldn’t stand that you became both a renowned Watcher and a famous author while she was still being encouraged by her parents to become a housewife?”

“Bestselling author, too.” He nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

“Kate didn’t know you before you were successful. If she resented you for that, she would have never started a relationship with you, much less agreed to marry you. And she’s a police detective, while you’re a civilian.”

“Civilian consultant,” he corrected her.

“Officially, you’re an author looking for inspiration for his next book. That’s no career in the police.”

He pouted, but had to agree with her. “But what if she decides that hunting demons is more important than hunting criminals, and quits the force to join the Council?” He had seen the signs, too - she was considering it. The relative lack of paperwork and regulations held a lot of appeal.

“Oh, Richard! In that case, you’ll have to get used to the fact that your wife will soon outrank you.” His mother smiled wickedly at him.

Rick gaped, not certain if she was kidding or not. Or if he should be happy or insulted at the insinuation. He settled for happy. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, kiddo.” His mother waved at him in that lazy manner of hers, and stepped out of his office.

And he went back to his report detailing why the Council had to reimburse that Ice Cream vendor since Vi had had to appropriate his wares to subdue that fire elemental in Phoenix.

*****

**New York, April 2010**

Richard Castle watched his Slayer go through her sword forms in her flat’s gym for a few minutes before he cleared his throat.

Vi stopped at once, her blade seemingly frozen in mid-motion. “Yes, Rick?” She turned around and lowered her sword.

He pointed to the bench at the wall. “Come on, let’s sit down.”

“Oh, one of those talks!” She pouted. “Is this about the incident in Clark’s? He had it coming!”

“Who? What about Clark’s?” Had he missed anything?

“Oh, nothing.” She smiled widely at him, then sat down on the mats, facing the bench. “So, shoot!”

He knew she was hiding something, but he’d find out what later. For now, there was something more important to talk about than some busted demon heads. “So… You’ve been pretty involved with the wedding planning.” More than him, at least.

Vi shrugged in that too casual way of hers that indicated she was tenser than she tried to appear. “Someone has to be the voice of the Slayers.”

“Huh?”

“You know, making sure that there’s enough food, the music doesn’t suck, and there are enough cute guys and girls around so we don’t grow bored - can’t count on some demon being stupid enough to mess with the wedding to get some action.” Vi’s grin showed all her teeth.

Rick nodded. “I see. Good thinking there.” The idea of hungry Slayers, no, hungry bored Slayers, was terrifying. The only thing worse would be horny Slayers.

“Always.”

He coughed in response, but she didn’t even flinch, much less blush. Slayers! “So I was wondering how you and Kate work together.”

“You mean you’re wondering if we’ve ‘settled our differences’, right?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

He nodded. “Well… yes.”

Vi shrugged, still a bit forced. “She needs to learn that she’s not a Slayer, but otherwise, she’s OK.”

And that was the crux of the issue. Kate wasn’t a Slayer, but she wasn’t a Watcher either. So, she had no defined place in the pecking order that Slayers saw the world as. And while Kate didn’t share that kind of worldview, she definitely didn’t see herself as subordinate to Vi. He made a mental note not to explore that particular thought in a book. He didn’t write that kind of fantasy books. “She is no Slayer. But she’ll probably be a Watcher sooner or later.”

“What?” Vi blinked at him. “A Watcher?”

“We don’t have to be all stuffy and British.” Rick laughed.

“I know that! But Watchers are the loremasters. Not the frontline. And you study for years.”

“Well, Kate’s been reading my books since she was twelve.” And she had been a very cute kid. “And you know that all the details about demons in my works are correct.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

Rick hadn’t either, not for some time, at least. But there was no need to mention that. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Just treat her as a Watcher in training.”

“Really? Did you talk to her as well?” She narrowed her eyes at him again.

“I didn’t think I had to. She might not have realised that she’s becoming a Watcher yet.” He grinned.

“And you don’t want to spook her, I see. Sneaky!” Vi grinned again, but it slowly gave away to a smile.

“Guilty as charged!” That should have settled that. No need to tell her that she didn’t have to fear that Kate would replace her. That would only make her act defensive. Or ask her if she had ever been serious about pursuing him. Some things Rick didn’t want to know. “Now… what was that about Clark’s?”

“Uh…” Vi started to fidget. “It wasn’t my fault!”

*****

“Most people call before they visit,” Richard Castle said when he opened the door and let his father inside the apartment. It might be petty, but for someone who claimed that he would have been part of Rick’s life if it hadn’t been too dangerous, Hunt had made himself rather scarce after being appointed as the CIA’s liaison to the Council.

“Most people don’t have to worry about being tracked by assassins,” Hunt answered, shrugging out of his coat. Rick knew he was carrying a weapon, but couldn’t spot… ah, small of the back, a slight bulge over the belt.

“You have an unhackable magically protected cell phone,” Rick pointed out.

“I can’t use that for my other work, and I can’t afford to get sloppy,” Hunt answered as he walked over to the couch. “I need to keep up the routines that keep me alive.”

Rick shook his head.

“Do you invite people into your apartment?” Hunt shot back.

“Touché,” Rick acknowledged. “Drink?”

“Whisky, please.”

“Shouldn’t you ask for a Martini, shaken not stirred?” Rick chuckled as he went over to the bar.

“You know that Bond isn’t exactly a realistic secret agent.” Hunt sounded a bit touchy.

“Fleming actually was involved in the ‘business’,” Rick countered. “He just dressed it up for the readers. They did crazy things in his time.” Just like himself, he thought.

“Things have changed.” Hunt nodded when he took his drink from Rick.

“Cheers!” Rick sat down and raised his glass.

Hunt mirrored him, then took a sip and nodded appreciatively.

“There are some advantages to working for the British,” Rick said. He was proud of his single malt of choice.

“And disadvantages.”

“I got divorced of her.” Rick grinned, then sighed. “I assume that you deliberately picked a time to visit when all my redheads and my fiancée were not at home.”

“I thought we should talk, you know, father to son.”

Rick almost corrected him with ‘absent father to son with a family’, but controlled himself. It would be stupid to drive his father away when he was reaching out to Rick. No matter how awkward this conversation felt. “Teach me the facts of life before I get married?” he quipped.

Hunt nodded slowly. “In a way.”

Rick frowned. “I wouldn’t think a man who gave up on his family to keep them safe from his job’s dangers would know much about marriage.”

“You would be wrong, son.” Hunt smiled faintly and raised his hand. Something caught the light on his ring finger.

Rick blinked. “You’re married?” That he hadn’t yelled this was a testament to his iron self-control.

“Yes.”

“But… what about all that ‘if my enemies knew about you, you’d be in grave danger’ bit?” He couldn’t help feeling more than a bit resentful at that.

“Well, my wife’s in the business as well.”

“Oh.” That might excuse it. Might - the jury was still out there. If Rick’s stepmother was just a secretary in the CIA, a real live Moneypenny...

“Yes. She’s an agent, and a damn good one.”

Apparently, she wasn’t a secretary. “She’s not a Russian spy who you seduced into switching sides, is she?” When his father stared at him, he quickly added: “Just checking… although you would react like that if she was. A Russian spy, that is.” That’s how it worked, after all - misdirection and subterfuge. “So… will she be your plus one?”

“Unlikely. She’s an active agent.” Hunt took another sip from his glass. Was that a tell?

“So are you,” Rick pointed out.

“Not as active as I’d like to be. Not anymore.”

Oh, that was a glare alright. Rick smiled. “If you want to come on a few demon hunts, that can be arranged. We’ll call it familiarising yourself with our modus operandi.” That sounded nice and professional. Much better than Buffy’s ‘See if you wet yourself or not’. “I’ll even loan you a flamethrower.”

“I’m not qualified on them,” Hunt said. Seeing Rick’s doubtful expression, he shook his head. “We don’t actually use flamethrowers anymore.”

“Well, you should. The Ack Pack has saved my life many times.” It was a great weapon. Especially against vampires. “And the psychological effect is even better.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Alright.” He’d change his opinion once he saw it in action, Rick thought. Everyone hunting vampires loved fire. He took a sip from his own glass, savouring the taste. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

Hunt finished his glass. “I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t have second thoughts about marrying a woman in your business. I never regretted it.”

“I don’t have second thoughts.” Rick had seldom been as certain of something as of his desire to marry Kate.

Hunt nodded at him. Rick nodded back. Then he refilled their glasses. “Are we actually bonding over marrying women who are active in our business?”

“Are we?” Hunt asked back.

“I think we are.” Awkwardly, though. But it was more than Rick had had before. “So… when do I get to meet my stepmom? And did you tell her about me?”

“She knows you exist.”

“I mean, about what I really do.”

Hunt took another sip from his glass instead of answering.

Rick shook his head. “Well, let me give you a little bit of advice: Don’t keep such secrets from your wife. Countless failed relationships taught me that.” Though to be fair, Rick hadn’t been trying too hard to make them work.

“Both of us are used to keeping secrets,” Hunt finally said.

“From each other as well?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds…” Bad? Stupid? “... complicated.”

“It works for us.”

“You should still tell her. So I can meet her.” Rick had to meet her. A woman who had captured his father’s heart? A spy, to boot?

She would make a great character! Although Rick would have to change her a lot - angry stepmothers were bad enough when they weren’t trained assassins.

*****

**New York, May 2010**

Richard Castle had thought that the last few weeks had been hectic as the preparations for his and Kate’s wedding took over more and more of their and their families’ time. But, looking at the charter jet taxiing over to them, he realised that he hadn’t seen anything yet.

“I might have made a slight miscalculation,” he whispered to Vi, who was leaning against the first of the rental cars they had organised.

“Huh?” He didn’t have to turn his head to know she was looking at him.

“They’re coming for a wedding. Not to stop an apocalypse, or to rescue Alexis,” Rick went on.

“Yes?”

His Slayer still didn’t understand. He sighed. “They are coming to celebrate, to party, not to hunt demons.”

“Oh! You mean…” Vi trailed off.

He looked at her, meeting her suddenly wide eyes. “Yes. They’ll not even be trying to be professional.”

“Fuck.”

And then the jet came to a stop in front of the gangway, and the Scoobies descended on New York. And on Rick.

Buffy was the first out of the plane, dressed like a model, though a head too short for the runway, even with her high heels. She was lugging around a suitcase big enough to fit two people inside. Or her weapons and a few of her shoes. “Rick!” She spread her arms, not bothering to lose the suitcase, and Rick was lifted off the ground. Fortunately, she only prevented him from breathing and didn’t crack a rib.

“Yo, Rick. Vi.” Faith, wearing jeans, boots and a leather jacket waved at him, a bag slung over her shoulder. “B, let the man breathe, or he won’t pay for your shoes!”

Rick found himself released as Buffy went and hugged Vi. “Vi! How’s it feel, getting a stepmom?” Rick wasn’t the only one to wince. Fortunately, Vi couldn’t breathe either, and so couldn’t retort.

“Hello, Rick, Vi.” Dawn was dressed in a business deux-piece and not quite sensible heels. Probably chosen in deliberate contrast to her sister’s minidress. “Don’t mind Buffy, she barely managed to sit still during the flight. Worse than a toddler.”

“Hey!” Buffy protested. And pouted when Dawn seemed to ignore her. But before the blonde Slayer could act half her age, or less, Willow arrived.

“Behave, everyone!” the witch said. “We’re here for Rick’s wedding, not another shopping trip.” She was with Kennedy; apparently their on/off relationship was currently ‘on’ again.

“We’re good enough to manage both!” Buffy said, nodding for emphasis. She ignored Dawn rolling her eyes.

“Hi, Rick!”

“Hello, Rick.”

Xander and Anya were next. Anya’s smile was too wide, though at least Rick didn’t feel the urge to get out the shark-repellent any more, and Xander was wearing the ugliest shirt Rick had seen this side of Hawaii. Business as usual for the couple, then.

“Hi! Rick!” Andrew stumbled down the gangway, carrying several smaller bags and backpacks. His shirt and pants made Xander’s fashion choices look like runway material.

“Hello, Richard.” There was his ex-wife. Looking… as she usually did, Rick decided. Slightly disapproving of him, in other words.

“Hello, Mary.”

And finally, Rupert arrived. Rick’s oldest friend among the Council looked slightly stressed - spending a few hours locked in a plane with the rest of the Scoobies would do that, of course. Not that Rupert admitted that he was part of the Scoobies, hating the name.

“Rupert. You look like you could use a drink.”

“I fully agree, Richard.”

“I thought Spike would be coming as well,” Rick said. He had organised a car with covered windows in the back, after all. Not that he’d mind it very much if that particular corrupting influence wasn’t in the same city as his daughter.

“He was convinced that covering up himself with blankets and a parasol would be catching too much attention, given your celebrity status” Rupert explained, then looked at the top of the gangway, where a crew member was pushing out a very large suitcase. Even larger than Buffy’s.

“You managed to convince him to travel in that?” Rick stared, then checked for flying pigs. After all, Andrew was here as well, and might have messed up another ritual.

“Just for disembarking,” Rupert clarified. His smile told Rick that he’d not mind if the disembarking took a bit longer than needed.

The wedding was off to a good start, Rick thought.

*****

“I’ll say, you have outdone yourself, Richard,” Rupert said later when Rick and his friend had retired to his office. “To house so many guests without complaints is no small feat.”

“Complaints from me, or them?” Rick asked, opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a bottle of his favourite whisky. “Because there were complaints. Several, actually.” Buffy, of course had wanted a bigger room, which had prompted Faith to ask for one as well, just because, and Xander had wanted a bigger TV. He had been joking, at least.

Rupert chuckled. “Oh, that was just the usual grumbling. I tend to ignore it.” He held out his glass, and Rick filled it. “But I meant from you. You have provided our rather large group with all we need for our stay here to be both comfortable and safe as well as ready for any eventuality.”

“Oh, it’s not the first time we’ve had the Scoobies as visitors, after all,” Rick answered, filling his own glass. He smiled when he caught Rupert’s slight wince at the name. “Cheers!”

“But I was most impressed by how you and Mary got along,” Rupert remarked.

Rick frowned, if a bit exaggeratedly. “You mean how we didn’t call each other names? We stopped that once Alexis scolded us for our behaviour.” Having your little girl tell you off tended to be a sobering experience, even in the middle of a divorce. “But you’re right, we do manage to remain civil with each other. And Kate and Mary are even… friends.” And wasn’t that a strange thing to say? Terrifying too! Who knew what they were talking about right now? He had told Kate repeatedly not to believe anything Mary said about him - unless it was flattering - but she had rolled her eyes in that manner of hers, and Rick didn’t think she would actually heed his words.

“Quite so. Mary spoke highly of your intended.”

And now Rick wanted to know what Mary had said about Kate. He clenched his teeth and took a sip from his glass. He wouldn’t ask Rupert to gossip. Not when Rupert had that smile that told Rick that he was all too aware of Rick’s thoughts, and found the situation amusing. Probably still wasn’t over Rick’s rejection of his ideas for the latest book.

Rick cleared his throat and smiled. “Do you like the whisky?” It was a good one. Expensive too, but that went without saying.

“Yes. Quite a find, in the colonies, I would assume.”

“Oh, we have decent beverages here,” Rick said in his best, or worst, New York accent. “Comes with throwing tea into the harbour - more room for good drinks.”

“I thought that that was the work of your neighbours in Boston, not New York. I might have to ask Faith if I misremembered.”

Rick glared at him. Faith was unreasonably proud of her home town, despite her experiences as a child there. “I was speaking of the USA as a whole.”

“Ah. As you colonials are wont to.” Rupert had emptied his own glass in the meantime.

“Yes, us ‘colonials’. Who have taken over most of the Council in the mother country.” Rick smiled.

“I have faith that proper British manners will prevail. And your own daughter seems to agree with me.”

Rick shot the man a glare. That was fighting dirty. And venturing too close to the subject of his first wife.

Rupert must have noticed, since he held up a hand. “Enough banter, I think. This is an occasion for celebrating your good future, not for dwelling on past regrets.”

Such as Mary, Rick thought. “You’re very supportive of my upcoming nuptials, though you haven’t married yourself.”

For a moment, he thought he had touched a nerve, since Rupert seemed to tense. He relaxed quickly, though. “Indeed. My family, and the old Council, as you would know, were quite intent on getting me married. To a proper wife, of course.”

“Yes. The old ‘heir and spare’,” Rick commented.

“More than one spare, given our profession,” Rupert said. “But I was a bit of a rebel in my youth, and in a small part, that carried over even after I became a Watcher.”

“Somehow I don’t think that you refused to marry because of a teenage rebellion.”

“By the time I was reconsidering my choices, I had already been chosen as Buffy’s Watcher.” Rupert raised his glass.

“Part of the reason behind that appointment probably was your rebel attitude,” Rick remarked.

“I think, in hindsight, that it was more aimed at my family. Travers wanted to weaken their influence in the old Council.”

Rick laughed. “He’d be aghast to know that you’re now the Head Watcher of the Council.”

“Oh, yes. The miserable pillock would spin in his grave, if we had found enough of his remains to bury them properly.” Rupert’s grin was properly feral. Too much time with Slayers like Buffy and Faith, Rick thought.

“But isn’t there anyone, you know?” Rick gestured, not quite willing to openly ask about his friend’s love life.

“Usually, people wait with trying to matchmake their friends until after their wedding,” Rupert said. He was grinning, but Rick understood the message.

He had to ask the other Scoobies if he wanted to know who Rupert was seeing!

*****

**New York, May 2010**

Getting someone to talk about Rupert’s love life was surprisingly difficult, Richard Castle discovered soon enough. Dawn claimed that she didn’t care about gossip - a claim as convincing as Buffy stating that she didn’t care about shoes. Xander said that he was sworn to privacy, whatever that meant. Willow scolded him for prying. Which meant that Kennedy wouldn’t answer his questions either. Faith simply laughed. Buffy somehow managed to turn him asking her into him paying for her next shopping trip. Without spilling the beans, even! Anya, of course, wanted an inappropriate amount of money. And dental, whatever she meant by that. He wouldn’t ask Mary the time of day if it wasn’t an emergency or concerning Alexis. And his own daughter chose the wrong time and occasion to rebel against her parents, again!

Which left Rick with just one source willing to brave whatever Rupert was holding over the Scoobies’ heads. Even if he really disliked them.

“Hey, Spike!” he greeted his least welcome guest, standing in the doorway to the vampire’s room. Rick had wanted to house Spike in the basement, but Vi had volunteered one of her guestroom’s. And everyone had looked at Rick as if he had proposed to buy a few kittens to play poker! They were the people who had transported Spike in a suitcase, after all!

“Rick!” The vampire smiled widely at him, as if they were old friends and Spike hadn’t taught Alexis how to pick locks and bust cars. Granted, both were useful skills, but Alexis should have learned them to prepare for her professional career! And not from Spike! “Feeling jittery about the wedding yet?”

“I’ve been married twice,” Rick pointed out.

“Right!” Spike nodded in what Rick thought was supposed to be sympathy. “Then you know how women change as soon as you’re married.”

Rick smiled thinly. “I prefer to think that they do not change, but rather stop pretending - in some cases, at least.” Like Gina. Kate, though, was one of the least pretentious women Rick knew. And in his first marriage, Rick had been the one to change. Or at least his career had changed.

“Well, Dru certainly did change. Granted, we weren’t married, and she was crazy to start with, but…” Spike shrugged. “Can’t trust a woman who leaves you for a Fungus Demon - I mean, that’s like dating a fungus infection!”

If he hadn’t sought out the vampire to ask about Rupert’s love life, Rick would have gladly pointed out that Spike did trust Drusilla after that incident. And asked if vampires could get STDs - he knew dying cured them, but could the undead get sick again? As it was, he shrugged noncommittally. “Speaking of women… I noticed a certain evasiveness when I inquired after my dear friend Rupert’s love life.”

Spike laughed out loud, even slapping his thigh. “That’s one way to word it! Giles got’em spooked right and proper, does he?”

“He does. So, I thought I’d come ask the one person I know who would be brave enough to defy Rupert.” Or stupid enough.

“You’ve come to the right man then!” Spike seemed as pleased as Rick had hoped he’d be. “Although if you expected something good, like Giles dating a Slayer, or a demon, then you’ll be disappointed.”

Rick had had such thoughts, actually. An older, experienced man and a younger woman in his charge, or an affair with the enemy - the lure of forbidden love was a literary trope for a reason, after all. He had even suspected that Buffy and Rupert might be an item, until Buffy’s reaction to his casual inquiries. “Well… if it’s a normal affair, why has he put the fear of Ripper into the other Scoobies?”

Spike chuckled. “Because they ruined his last normal relationship.”

He hadn’t heard about that. “Really? Do tell!”

The vampire grinned. “They were sworn to secrecy, of course, afterwards, but from what I found out, they apparently feared that his girlfriend - a librarian, even! - might be evil. Or a demon. Or both.”

A sensible stance, in Rick’s opinion. He was certain that Xander would agree. “Nothing a little spell wouldn’t tell.”

“Well… they were also concerned that the woman in question might be a gold-digger,” Spike explained. “That’s your fault, by the way.”

“My fault?”

“You were the one who married your agent - against everyone’s advice. So, the gang got a bit concerned when Giles was seen with a young and pretty woman. And when she was revealed to be a librarian, they agreed that, as Buffy put it, she was too perfect to be genuine.”

Rick winced. He could see what was coming.

Spike nodded. “Yes. The whole shovel speech. By everyone. The poor thing was so terrified, she left the mother country for Australia.” Spike frowned. “Although I also heard that she was mad at Giles for not telling her that he was taking care of disturbed young people. Or that she was mad that he didn’t tell her about demons.” The vampire shrugged. “Either way, the bird’s flown, and Giles laid down the law.”

That explained it. Rupert had his nickname for a reason, after all. Rick smiled. “So… who’s he dating?”

Spike closed up. “A perfectly normal, nice woman.”

“That sounded like a quote from Rupert.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to tell me who he’s dating either?”

“Mate, you know how he is. He said he’d get Willow to do a spell to make me forget everything about Passions!” Spike was shaking his head. “Sorry, but there are things I don’t risk. Not even for you.” He shrugged. “Besides, you’ve got more important things to worry about than which bird Rupert’s seeing.”

Rick hated to admit it, but the vampire was correct - he was about to marry the love of his life, after all. And for all his lack of involvement in the planning, he was still quite busy with the preparations. He was the one paying for it, and signing all the checks. Of which there were a lot.

Before he could comment on that, though, Spike went on: “Your stag night, of course!”

Rick froze.

*****

“Dad! You look like…” Alexis trailed off, apparently not wanting to swear in front of him. At least Spike’s bad influence hadn’t reached that far, Richard Castle thought. Yet.

“It got a little late last night,” Rick said, looking around for the coffee maker in his kitchen. He needed fluids. And caffeine. And something for his headache, before he decided that shooting himself in the head was most effective. But coffee first. Where was… ah, there! Where it was supposed to be. Who’d have expected that?

“What happened last night?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“What?”

“I don’t remember.” He didn’t want to, and Rick was old enough - and rich enough - so he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. Like remembering his stag night.

“Dad!” Now his daughter was frowning at him. He needed coffee to deal with this. Or not deal with this. Why was the coffee maker taking so long?

“Yes, Alexis?”

“Even if you drank so much you lost your memory, you would remember the start of the evening.”

Ah, logic - his old foe. He stared at the coffee dripping into his cup. “It’s complicated.”

“That excuse worked when I was four, Dad. It doesn’t work any more.”

“I think it worked at least until you were five. Maybe six, even,” he joked. She didn’t laugh. Well, he was not at his best. “Some things are not meant to be spoken to anyone who wasn’t there. This is one of those things.”

“So you do remember!” she said, jumping on his lapse. That had to be Kate’s influence.

“I plead the fifth.”

“You’re not on trial here.”

“It certainly feels like it!” he protested, then gripped his cup, which had finally filled with his dearly needed coffee.

“That’s probably because you did something you feel guilty about.”

“I’m innocent until proven guilty.” He took a big sip from his cup, then cursed when the hot coffee burned his lips.

“If you don’t want to tell me, then I’ll have to ask someone else who was there, and they’ll not be trying to make you look good,” Alexis tried a different tack.

“They would be incriminating themselves,” he pointed out. At least he thought they would - his memory was a bit hazy when it came to the end. After the fourth pub they visited trying to prove to Rupert that you could have a decent pint in New York.

“They can turn Queen’s evidence.”

“It’s state’s evidence. We’re a proud republic, not a kingdom.” He huffed, then took another sip. Still too hot.

“We have a royal charter, though. And we’re all subjects of Her Majesty the Queen. Even you, according to your diplomatic immunity.”

And uncomfortable facts joined forces with logic. Why was everyone ganging up on him? All he had done last night was drinking too much, singing too loudly, defacing public property, and teaching Javier and Kevin how to use a flamethrower. Which anyone should be able to. Was it arson if no one one was going to complain about a fire?

“RICK!”

He winced - his Slayer had strong lungs.

“How could you!” Vi stormed into the kitchen. She was ignoring the croissants in their basket. Instead, she was focusing on him. That was a bad sign.

“How could I what?”

“How could you burn down Clark’s without me?”

“He did what?” Alexis asked.

So, that was the hazy part at the end. He had been wondering where he had gotten the moving targets for his impromptu lesson from. “Technically, it wasn’t me, but Kevin, Javier and Rupert,” he defended himself. “And I think Xander too. And Spike!” he added, with a frown at Alexis.

“They all decided to burn down a demon bar. Without you saying anything.” His little girl sounded far too doubting, in his opinion.

“We were all very drunk,” he defended himself. “I don’t remember who had the idea. Really.”

Vi huffed. “A likely excuse! You never forgot anything bad I did!”

“I’m usually not drunk when that happens,” Rick pointed out. “Believe me, I’d certainly like to forget certain things you did,” he added with a sigh.

“Don’t try to distract me with Vi’s sordid past,” Alexis said. Her frown had grown worse, Rick noticed.

“It was worth a try,” he mumbled. “But why are you interrogating and berating me? I was but one of  six!” It was so unfair! “Even Rupert indulged himself!” Although were he in Rupert’s place and had to deal each day with the Scoobies, Rick would probably be an alcoholic.

“You’re the groom,” Alexis pointed out, “and the host. And you paid for the evening.”

“Logic, my old nemesis,” Rick muttered. At least the coffee had cooled down enough - barely - to be drunk without sipping. “But I really don’t remember anything past… well…” He gasped. “We took my car!”

“You left it in the garage.” Vi was was narrowing her eyes at him.

“We took it when we came for the flamethrower.” He recalled that now. How could he have thought that this would be a good idea? Drunk driving, drunk arson… Rupert would have a fit once he heard of this… no! Rick perked up. Rupert was implicated as well!

“What did you do with my baby?” Vi’s guttural growl made his good mood disappear in an instant.

“We drove to Clark’s with it.”

“You were six. The car seats four, maybe five.” Alexis said.

“Five. And one vampire fits in the trunk.”

“You put Spike in the boot?” His daughter was staring at him as if he had maimed a cat.

“He was the only one who didn’t need to breathe and needed the protection from sunlight it offered.” Rick refilled his cup. More coffee would help even more.

“It was night,” Vi said.

“We were planning ahead.” Damn, still too hot. Or again too hot. Rick winced and licked his lips.

“You said you were too drunk to remember anything. And you claim you were planning ahead in that state?” Vi scowled.

“Hey!” Compared to his Slayer, who tended to act very much impulsively, Rick was a master strategist.

“It’s true, Dad. This doesn’t sound very convincing.” Alexis had that ‘I’m so disappointed’ look again.

“That’s why it’s true - fiction would have to make sense. Reality doesn’t have that handicap!” Why didn’t anyone believe him when he was telling the truth? It had made sense at the time, too.

“That still doesn’t excuse burning down Clark’s without me!” Vi said, huffing.

“You wrecked it several times,” Rick said. “Burned it once as well.”

“Exactly! It was mine to burn down!”

“What?” Rick stared at her. That didn’t make any sense to anyone. Well, with the possible exception of another Slayer.

“So, you owe me compensation for the emotional pain this callous betrayal caused!” Vi nodded emphatically.

“And me for the worries I had because you were so irresponsible!” Alexis added.

He blinked. “Are you two trying to extort money?”

His innocent daughter shrugged. “What is it worth to you if we don’t mention this again?” Her grin was positively feral. Rick added Anya to the list of Scoobies with whom his daughter shouldn’t associate. Or shouldn’t have, seeing as the damage had been done already.

That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t pay, of course. No getting reminded of this at every opportunity? Cheap at any price. “How much?”

They told him. Definitely Anya’s influence. But then, it was better that they picked up her greed and not her other flaws. Like the violent vengeful streak. Sighing, he looked for his wallet. Before he found it, though, another far too loud voice coming from the door made him wince.

“CASTLE!”

That was Kate. But she only called him Castle if she was angry...

Kate made a beeline towards him. “The captain just called me. Why is your car on the precinct’s roof?”

“So that’s where we left it!” Rick exclaimed happily. Which, he discovered a moment later, hadn’t been the smartest thing to say.

He blamed the coffee, of course.

*****

**New York, May 2010**

He should have held his stag night on the eve of his wedding, Richard Castle thought as he was faced with an angry fiancée. The groom wasn’t allowed to see the bride until the ceremony, after all.

“So… you have no idea how your car ended up on the precinct’s roof.” Kate had her arms crossed an expression on her face she usually reserved for the interrogation of suspects.

“I suspect a prank by someone with supernatural powers. Like a witch,” Rick said. It wasn’t even a lie - Giles was no Willow and couldn’t simply float or teleport a car on a roof, but he had enough talent and skill to mute a helicopter.

“Or a Slayer?”

“I would never suspect Vi, Buffy or Kennedy of doing such a thing,” Rick quickly said. Only a fool would try to frame a Slayer. Like Xander. Or Dawn - but she only did that with Buffy, so that didn’t count.

“You didn’t mention Faith.”

“Well…” He winced. “I’m not exactly certain if she would be more offended if I falsely accused her of doing such a thing, or if I claimed that she would never do such a thing.”

“Even with supernatural strength it would be difficult to lift a car to the roof without being spotted.”

“Not exactly. The side alley is not really patrolled, and the camera there has a blind spot.” Vi had used that a few times to sneak into the Precinct. “Granted, it’s probably not large enough to carry a car through, but still…” he trailed off. “I’m not helping my case, am I?”

Kate shook her head.

He cleared his throat. “Well, I can guarantee you that if that miniscule hole in the precinct’s security was used to transport a car on its roof, it was done without my knowledge.”

“That’s remarkably specific.” She narrowed her eyes.

“Really?” He gave her his best innocent look. Judging by her frown, it wasn’t enough. Story of his life. He tried another tack. “In any case, I don’t understand why people are making such a big fuss about this. I’m the car’s owner, and I’m not that concerned. Isn’t this just illegal parking?”

“What?” She looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “And trespassing. Probably breaking and entering, too.”

“I honestly doubt that they - whoever they are - actually took the car inside the precinct,” he quickly said. “And trespassing isn’t exactly a capital crime either.” Didn’t diplomats use their immunity to ignore parking tickets all the time? Giles couldn’t object to that, could he?

“What did you do, Castle?”

“Me?” He touched his chest. “I told you, I have no idea.”

“You have several theories, at the very least, which you just mentioned.”

His mother had always told him that he was too clever for his own good. “Mere speculation after the fact.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “Castle, stop stalling. The press has caught wind of this, and the Captain’s not happy.”

Rick winced. This complicated things. And Kate knew that he wasn’t as innocent as he claimed. Should he blame the alcohol? Or… “Let’s blame my ex-wife. Second ex-wife, I mean.”

“What?” She had that cute surprised look again, with her mouth half-open. As if she couldn’t believe what he had just said.

“Publicity stunt. Unapproved, of course. By me, that is.”

Kate snorted. “I somehow doubt that Gina will go along with this.”

Rick grinned confidently. “Trust me - she’ll do anything for money. And this is a good publicity stunt.” Maybe he should add such a scene to his next book.

And, he added after he saw Kate frown, maybe he shouldn’t show so much enthusiasm for the prank after he had spent so much time and effort denying any involvement in it. Even if it was a good prank.

*****

“Rick? I need to talk to you.” Anya strode into Rick’s office.

“You and everyone else.” After spending months preparing for the wedding, it was remarkable how many things hadn’t been settled yet, Rick Castle thought.

Anya looked around. “I don’t see anyone else here.”

“You caught me during one of the few times I’ve got a little peace.” Of course, hiding where everyone looked for him first might not have been a good idea. Hindsight almost always was 20/20.

“Good.” She nodded, apparently happy about this, instead of taking the hint that he needed a break. “We have to talk about an important thing which I think has been neglected so far.”

“Money?”

She blinked. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Because that’s the reason for which everyone comes to see me.” And, he thought, because the former Vengeance Demon almost exclusively cared about two things: Xander and money, usually in that order. Although… “Unless you’re also here to talk about Xander.” The man had been involved in Rick’s stag night, after all.

She shook her head. “I already spoke with him. He assured me that he did nothing untowards with another woman.”

Rick nodded. “He didn’t. Neither did I or Giles, of course,” he quickly added. The unattached men who had attended his stag night would have to fend for themselves.

She frowned. “I wasn’t concerned about the stag night, but I have to watch out at the wedding. At weddings, women get ideas. And I don’t want them to get the wrong ideas about my Xander!”

“Of course not.” Rick made a mental note to make sure that the guests not in the know about the supernatural would be informed that Anya was a very jealous and occasionally violent woman. And maybe he’d tell Gina that Xander was very rich. He cleared his throat. “You mentioned money.”

“Yes.” She nodded in that slightly exaggerated manner of hers. “I was informed that you haven’t made a prenuptial agreement, so I prepared one for you. It’ll save you a lot of money in your divorce.”

“I’m not planning to divorce Kate. Especially not before the wedding.”

“Well, you should. Failing to plan ahead is one of the most common causes for substantial financial losses. Even taking my commission into account, this agreement will save you a small fortune.”

“Your commission?”

She nodded. “I deserve a reward for saving you money, don’t I?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I told you: I’m not planning to divorce her. We’re not getting divorced.”

“Well, your history indicates otherwise. You divorced all your earlier wives, after all. That’s a clear trend.”

He clenched his teeth. “Third time’s a charm, as the saying goes.”

“The saying also goes: Better safe than sorry.” She smiled in that slightly too wide way of hers.

Rick was sure that it wouldn’t be very safe to propose whatever agreement Anya had prepared to Kate. “I’ll be thinking about it.”

“That means ‘no’, right?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“Yes?” she asked with a hopeful expression.

“No. It’s just a polite way to tell you that I won’t be making a pre-nup with Kate,” he clarified.

She pouted. “I don’t see what’s so polite about getting a girl’s hopes up.”

“Well, most people understand what it means.”

“Then it makes even less sense. Why should you lie if everyone is supposed to know that you’re lying?” She shook her head.

Rick shrugged. He really wasn’t in the mood to discuss the trappings of modern society with a thousand years old former Viking. Or Norsewoman. “It’s probably our ancestors’ fault for starting it.”

“Well, no wonder we raided them, then!” Anya retorted.

“Actually, this may have started sometime after the Norman invasion,” Rick said, “so it would be your ancestors’ fault.”

She sniffed. “Those weren’t my ancestors. They were obviously assimilated by the French before conquering the British.”

“Let’s blame the French for this duplicity, then, alright?” Rick said with a smile. After all of the money their fashion industry had drained from his accounts thanks to the redheads in his life, they deserved this anyway.

*****

“...and I came home afterwards. Just another boring patrol.” Sitting on Rick’s desk, Vi made a show of yawning and stretching despite the clock on the wall showing that it was barely midnight.

“I don’t like this!” Rick Castle said.

Vi looked doubtful. “I’d certainly like some action, but you should be glad it’s boring. You don’t want to attend your wedding while injured, do you?” She pointed at a bruise on her upper arm. “Without magical healing, this would last a week or two, and the wedding’s in two days.”

“I don’t want ‘action’, as you put it,” Rick explained. “But it’s too quiet. Right before the wedding, that means something’s afoot.”

“Or every demon has either fled or is lying low because Willow’s in town. And Buffy and Faith.” Vi shrugged. “Burning down Clark’s will have driven away a few more,” Castle’s Slayer added with a reproachful glance at him.

He ignored that. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. And it wasn’t as if she had a monopoly on demon slaying. Or arson. The more the merrier. For demon slaying, at least. “No. Something is brewing. The wedding - they’ll strike at the wedding.”

“Are you certain that you’re not simply projecting your own anxiety faced with your third marriage?”

He shook his head. “Of course not!” He had gone through this twice before, after all. There was no reason to be anxious unless demons were involved. Or Gina. And Gina wasn’t involved, other than handling the car prank. So it had to be demons. His gut told him so, and his gut wouldn’t lie to him. Unless it concerned spicy food.

He had to find a way to carry his flamethrower at his wedding. Just to be ready for anything.

*****

**New York, May 2010**

“You won’t be carrying any flamethrower in the church, Castle.”

“But Kate! It’s for our safety! When the demons storm the premises I need to be able to defend us!” Rick Castle said with all the passion he could muster. “You should carry your shotgun, too - we can hide it in the bouquet.”

Kate was staring at him, then scoffed. “And brain the female guests with it afterwards when they try to catch it?”

“I don’t think the bouquet will survive the shooting,” he reasonably pointed out. “We should check your bridal dress too - can you fight in it?”

“Castle.”

“Maybe see if it can be ditched quickly. Weaken the seams or something?” It worked in the movies, after all. “Or can we get a kevlar version?” Months of preparations, and they had completely missed the most important parts! He started to pace in front of his desk.

“Castle!”

“In fact, we should probably hold the ceremony in the open. The sun will keep vampires away. The reception as well. We can claim that we converted to a nature church, or became wiccans, to explain it to the other guests.” Catering should be able to handle it. They could double up on the finger food, and skip the meal. “We can protect the perimeter with Claymore mines and flame traps.” He still remembered how to build those from Sunnydale.

“Castle...”

“Bombs! Demons could use bombs! We need dog patrols too. Sniffer dogs. And Poison! Canaries should work. Do pet shops deliver?”

“Pet shops don’t sell sniffer dogs, Castle.”

“What? Why not? That’s discrimination! Or something. Where can we get sniffer dogs then?”

“We don’t need sniffer dogs, Castle.”

“Of course we do!” What was the woman thinking? “Slayers aren’t trained to detect explosives. And we can’t teach them in just two days. Or could we? They’re Slayers, after all, not dogs. Of course we can! We just need samples of explosives for them to sniff! I’m sure Dad can deliver a wide range of all sorts of explosives.” He probably had tons of them stashed all over the city - it’s what Castle would have done in his place.

“Castle, are you planning to get bombs for our wedding?”

“We need them to be safe!”

“Castle… how much have you slept last night?”

“I haven’t slept at all. I had to plan the improved security measures.”

Why was she staring at him like that?

*****

“Alright,” Rick Castle said an hour later in the most reasonable tone he managed, “I might have been overreacting a little.” Not enough to deserve this, at least.

“A little?” Kate snorted. “You were talking about procuring explosives to train Slayers as sniffer dogs!”

He would have also used the explosives afterwards to secure the perimeter with more traps, but Rick didn’t think it would be smart to mention this. Vi was still glaring at him from where she was leaning against the wall. “I may have panicked, but you can’t deny that the threat is real.” A lot of demons wanted him dead. Even more wanted the Scoobies dead. And Gina’s soul must be a prize among the demons. Probably the holy grail - or would that be unholy? - for collectors of corrupted souls.

“That’s why Buffy, Willow and Xander are handling the security.” At least Kate was smiling again at him.

“They are guests. They’ll be distracted.” Rick’s third wedding was _the_ event of the year, after all. At least for the Council. And Xander would probably barely be able to move with Anya clinging jealously to his side.

“Willow already has cast her spells on the Church and the reception area. Do you think any demon can match her?” Alexis asked from his other side. He felt slightly surrounded and outnumbered. At least Mother was out shopping or something.

But his daughter, as usual, had made a good point. “Probably not,” he admitted. “But magic isn’t everything.”

“I’m your bodyguard!” Vi said. “Anything that can get through me wouldn’t have been stopped by anyone anyway!”

Kate nodded. “We also have normal physical security. And Hunt will be attending in disguise. And if he can ignore you for forty years to keep you safe, then he will certainly not let your wedding distract him in any way.”

Rick thought that he detected some resentment in her tone. Or maybe it was just exasperation. Having lost her mother, she had a strong opinion on parents choosing to leave their children. “My stepmother might be present as well. In disguise. Or watching from a sniper’s nest.”

“Granddad didn’t mention that to us,” Alexis said.

“He didn’t say anything to me either,” Rick admitted. “But I have a feeling that he would ask her to help provide covert security.” He noticed the three exchange glances, and scowled. “It’s a reasonable expectation knowing my father and his habits.” Well, it depended on whether or not his father had heeded Rick’s advice about telling her the truth. But it would fit well into a story!

“In any case,” Alexis said, “this just means that the wedding is even safer than we assume.”

“Which means your paranoia is just you being jittery about marrying again,” Vi commented.

“It’s not paranoia when they are really out to get you!” he countered.

“It’s paranoia when you pull an overnighter a day before your wedding to search the internet for bomb detectors,” Alexis retorted.

“And bombs,” Vi added. “Willow had to remove your name from a few watchlists.”

She did that regularly, so Castle wasn’t worried. A writer had to research such topics, anyway. He shrugged, then flashed his most charming smile at them. “So… now that this has been cleared up, could you tell Willow to remove the spell that’s keeping me in bed?”

“No,” his traitorous daughter stated in that overly serious tone she often used when addressing him over a minor issue. “You need to rest, Dad. The spell will end tomorrow morning.”

“And we can’t spend the night keeping an eye on you in case you have a relapse,” Vi said.

“Or decide to get drunk and do another publicity stunt.” Kate added with a snort.

“That wasn’t my idea,” he shot back. “And I don’t remember anything anyway.” That was his story and he was sticking to it! “But what if I have to go to the bathroom?”

“Use the bedpan.” Vi pointed at the side of his bed.

He looked at it. “Wasn’t that for when someone’s stuck to their bed for medical reasons?”

“Sleep deprivation is a medical condition,” Alexis said.

“As is paranoia,” Kate added.

Both smiled and Vi laughed, and all three left before he could come up with a comeback.

Maybe he did need his sleep, after all - he usually was more witty. But he still wasn’t convinced that he was entirely wrong about the danger.

*****

“I still say that we should play it safe. Cancel the wedding and cancel it again, so the third time will work out,” Richard Castle whispered.

“I’m afraid to say that there are several flaws in your plan, my friend,” Rupert, standing at his side, said. “First, this is your third wedding. Second, ‘gaming the system’, as Xander calls it, usually doesn’t work when the rule of three or magic in general is concerned. And third, I dare say that if you call off the wedding while standing at the altar, there might not be a second attempt at all. Your intended would certainly take grievous offense at such a slight.”

“You might be right,” Rick grudgingly admitted as the next hymn started up. “I still want my flamethrower with me, though.” Or at least close by.

“Leaving aside the wisdom of defying your future wife, a flamethrower is not an ideal weapon for fighting in a church full of civilians. The firearms you and the groomsmen carry should be more suitable should the improbable occur and an attack take place.”

Rick glared at his best man. Rupert remained unfazed, of course. If you had to deal with the Scoobies’ antics each day, the reasonable concerns of a fellow watcher would seem minor issues to him. Rick wouldn’t be able to convince him.

He sighed and surreptitiously looked around the church again. Javier, Kevin and Xander were at the door. Nothing would get through there even if Willow’s spells should fail. Faith and Kennedy were sitting with the witch on the groom’s side and he knew that if needed, the two Slayers could be at any entrance in a second.

“Patience, Richard,” Rupert interrupted his inspection. “Buffy and Vi are with Kate, Alexis and Lanie. They will arrive on schedule.”

“Not if Buffy decides to drive,” Rick muttered. Not that Vi would let her.

“Then they’ll simply wait inside the area protected by the spells.”

“Or have to make a detour to the hospital, to treat the heart attack her driving would cause to my future father-in-law.”

Rupert actually laughed at that! Talk about British black humour! Of course it fit the decidedly British style of the entire wedding. Alexis’s work, Rick thought. And probably Rupert’s too - the man could be remarkably subtle and underhanded when he wanted to. Well, a British wedding on American soil might ruffle Mary’s feathers some, which was a good thing. Show her that the Colonials could do ceremonies as well as the Mother Country. He glanced at his first wife, who was sitting on the bride’s side. She didn’t look ruffled, alas. At least Gina had had the decency not to attend. Not that she had been invited anyway. And the Fed-Ex was still in Alaska. Or Ontario. Or wherever he had been transferred to.

And his mother was chatting up another old friend of Rupert’s parents. Or renewing their acquaintance - Rick wasn’t certain, but she might have met the man at his first wedding. Although his mother flirting was better than her spreading embarrassing stories about him.

A flash almost made him draw his Glock, but it was just the stupid photographer Jane Varshney had brought with her to cover the wedding. He had been told not to do that! Rick wanted to give the man a piece of his mind, but a security man was already handling it. A security man looking remarkably like his father, Rick realised. No wonder he hadn’t spotted him among the guests! Rick quickly tried to spot his stepmother among the female security staff, but couldn’t see anyone who fit his expectations - but then, she would have chosen a disguise that wouldn’t fit his expectations anyway, wouldn’t she?

He checked if Andrew was sitting still and not trying to help with security - which the man wasn’t supposed to; Rick shuddered at the thought of what could have happened on his stag night had Andrew not been such a lightweight that he had passed out before the real fun stuff had even started - and then looked at the door again. Shouldn’t Kate have arrived by now? The groomsmen were not moving.

As if on cue, the Wedding March started, and the groomsmen were escorting the bridesmaids inside. Buffy, Vi, Alexis and Lanie entered, looking as radiant as the money he had paid for the dresses had promised. And so grown up, he thought with another glance at Alexis. Javier looked to be paying a little too much attention to Lanie for Vi’s ego, Castle noticed. Maybe he should have a talk with his Slayer later.

But then Kate arrived, on the arm of her father, and he forgot everything and everyone else. The way she walked down the aisle, the way her dress hugged her curves, the faint and just a little shy smile under the thin veil…

A subtle elbow from Rupert shook him out of his daze in time to hear the priest. Not that he cared much about what the man was saying, but it simply wouldn’t do to miss his cue. Kate deserved no less than a perfect wedding.

And then the time had finally come to say their vows.

“I, Richard Edgar Castle, take thee, Katherine Houghton Beckett, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.”

“I, Katherine Houghton Beckett, take thee, Richard Edgar Castle, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.”

He had a moment to realise that they had actually done it - that the wedding had happened without any demon attack or other incident - but then it was time to kiss the bride, and Rick forgot everything and everyone but Kate again.

*****

The End.

*****

 


End file.
